Ukrainian Nights

"Ukrainian Nights" is one of those gritty, unforgettable noir novels that takes its main protagonist to the nadir of love and obsession and then spits him out, almost broken. Hunter, a young New York Times journalist, assigned to investigate sex slavery and money laundering in Kiev just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is not a tough guy, not in the least. But he falls in love with Alina, the mistress of Karasov—the head of Ukraine’s largest mafia—and refuses to let go of her. The love story is run against a background of desperate brutality in Kiev and New York City, the result of the competing interests of international geopolitics, drug money, human trafficking, crooked banking—and for the rich spoils of oil and gas. The plot of "Ukrainian Nights" twists and turns until the reader is left wondering who is right and who is wrong.