Moscow, December 1991; a city in chaos, riven by gang violence and hyperinflation, its population in terror of a killer preying on children. Into this anarchy comes Alice Liddell, an American banker charged with starting the privatisation process crucial to Russia's hopes of reform. But reform means hardship, and survival is hard enough as it is; Alice has only a short period to succeed before the people lose patience with the progressive government.

Her target is the Red October distillery, Russia's most famous vodka producer, but Alice discovers that lack of time is the least of her problems. Red October is the centrepiece of a savage mafiya war between its charismatic boss Lev and his Chechen nemesis Karkadann. Are the brutal child killings terrorising Moscow connected to their violent conduct? How should Alice handle her discoveries that Red October is riddled with corruption from top to bottom? And can Alice and Lev, adversaries across the negotiating table, reconcile their very different professional aims with their very unprofessional feelings for each other?

As the characters get sucked into a vortex of violence, passion and betrayal, their struggles are no longer simply for their own designs; they are for the soul of Russia itself. Concentrated over 100 days of a Russian winter, Vodka is a thriller of taut suspense, shocking brutality, heart-pounding pace, a saga of rivalry and bloodshed, a searing study of addiction, and a love story truly poetic in its tragedy. Vodka is Boris Starling's finest book to date, and sure to catapult him into the top bracket of popular British writers.