Sonja's Run

"Hoyt has a fresh, invigorating style that grabs the reader immediately."—The New York Times

At the 1852 Christmas party hosted by Tsar Nicholas I, the plucky half-Chinese, half-Russian poet Sonja Sankova decks Peter "Colonel Cut" Koslov, who is infamous for his necklace of ears taken from serfs and Jews. In London that same night, American Jack Sandt, the Matthew Brady of Asia, conspires with Karl Marx to con the tsar into letting Sandt take daguerreotype images inside Russia.

So begins thi...