Hotel Melikov

"[An] enjoyable comic fable . . ." --Wall Street Journal, on Citizen Orlov

"We wouldn't mind at all if this turned out to be the start of a series." --Apple Books Review, on Citizen Orlov

"[An] auspicious debut . . ." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review, on Citizen Orlov

Not every fishmonger can be a double agent.

Return to an unnamed mountainous country in central Europe on the cusp of civil war. Enter once again Citizen Orlov, a former fishmonger who is now the Minister of Security for a government teetering on collapse. When tensions between the government and revolutionaries erupt, Orlov, hoping to escape the conflict and return to his normal life, is instead recruited by both sides to spy on the other.

With war raging around them, the new king and his ministers are whisked away for safety to the highest point in the kingdom, the convent at the peak of Mount Zhotrykaw. But all is not what it seems at the convent, including the nuns, and Orlov discovers a sinister plot that forces him to choose whose side he is on.