W: A Novel

Igor Štiks’s fourth novel, mysteriously titled with only one letter, W, is his most elaborate so far — and definitely his most exciting — a feat of storytelling in which historic tragedies are woven through with humor and erotic passion. It is both a murder mystery — in which nothing is as it seems and where we don’t learn the truth until the very last page — and a reflection on a century of revolutionary struggles. In it, Štiks asks some of the crucial questions of our era: What are the le...