The Butcher's Palace

The Butcher's Palace is a suspense novel set in contemporary Russia. An American art expert travels by train to Karapol in Asiatic Russia to authenticate a lost Jan Vermeer masterpiece reputedly in the possession of the ruthless and dictatorial president of one of the Russian Federation's remote autonomous republics. On the train, he meets a beautiful Russian woman with an agenda of her own with whom he begins a love affair. Arriving in Karapol, he and his new lover are introduced to the ambitious president of the republic who is a great admirer of Stalin, who is disgusted with the current state of Russia, and who has plans to secede from the Federation and lead all of Russia back to greatness. The American soon finds himself at the center of a murderous three-way intrigue for which he is ill-prepared.