Patrick Anderson
…excellent literary thriller…beautifully told by Bennett…This is a compelling portrait of a highly civilized society as it approached one of history's great upheavals. By the end of the story, the apolitical Spethmann must confront the realities of his world: "When things reach this pitch we are all in zugzwang. Past wrongs will not be forgiven. Rage and numbers will tell." I happened to watch Gillo Pontecorvo's classic film "The Battle of Algiers" while I was reading Zugzwang. The movie and novel make the same point: There are moments when the tides of history will not be denied.
—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Roiling with class tensions and rife with danger, St. Petersburg during the twilight of the last czar serves as the chessboard on which Irish author Bennett (The Catastrophist) stages this heady historical thriller. The game begins with a bang: the murder of prominent newspaper editor O.V. Gulko in March 1914, just weeks before the city hosts a glittering international chess tournament. (Zugzwangrefers to a situation in which a player can make only moves that worsen his position.) Then there's a second slaying. Despite plenty of the usual suspects-Bolsheviks, pro-German reactionaries, Polish nationalists-the police start grilling respected psychoanalyst Otto Spethmann and his 18-year-old daughter. The widower's protestations of innocence cut little ice with his chief inquisitor, Insp. Mintimer Lychev, a mysterious sort who happens to share Spethmann's chess enthusiasm. Dr. Spethmann's only hope: using his analytic skills to crack the case. As he races the clock, he and Lychev become caught up in a high-stakes battle of wits. The plot packs more than enough surprises to keep any suspense junkie sated. (Nov.)
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Library Journal
Claiming a patch of Boris Akunin's literary territory, prerevolutionary Russia, British novelist Bennett (The Catastrophist) imagines a psychoanalyst in St. Petersburg whose vigorous efforts on behalf of his patients lead to startling results. In fact, a visit from the police just days after the murder of a St. Petersburg journalist is just the first hint that Dr. Otto Spethmann will be drawn into terrible intrigue. The title is a chess term meaning a state of utter helplessness in which any action can only make things worse. And so it is for the characters, an array of plotters and naïfs whose yearning for love, justice, or power results in the deaths of many-but not of the tsar. Bennett, whose previous works have been shortlisted and longlisted for the Whitbread Award and the Booker Prize, respectively, plays out a real chess game complete with board illustrations in an intricate choreography of revolutionists, lovers, and turncoats who keep one another and us guessing until the very end. An unusual book that will find its ardent readers in most large public libraries.
—Barbara Conaty
Kirkus Reviews
Why would a reclusive chess master be at the heart of a plot to kill the Tsar? That's just one of the puzzles in this taut, intricate thriller set in pre-revolutionary Russia, the fifth novel from the Northern Irish Bennett (Havoc, in Its Third Year, 2004, etc.). It's March 1914, and St. Petersburg is in ferment. Pro-German and pro-French factions jockey for power as war looms; terrorists and revolutionaries are hard at work; Jews are being scapegoated. Yet our narrator, Dr. Otto Spethmann, born a Jew but not raised as one, remains serenely nonpolitical. A middle-aged widower, he lives with his daughter Catherine, a willful university student who he loves dearly. Otto is a respected psychoanalyst with some celebrity patients: Avrom Rozental, a Polish Jew favored to win the upcoming chess tournament; Anna Ziatdinov, a beautiful socialite, daughter of the reactionary industrialist Zinnurov; and Gregory Petrov, Bolshevik leader (Lenin is in exile). Otto is forced to acknowledge political strife by a visit from a police inspector, Lychev, who suspects Otto is linked to a plot to kill the Tsar. The idea is preposterous, but it turns out that Catherine has indeed been consorting with a would-be terrorist, now murdered. Otto's serenity is further disturbed when armed intruders ransack his office for Rozental's file. Bennett deftly splices the patients' case histories with his fast-moving plot. Otto counsels the deeply disturbed Rozental not to play in the tournament, advice which will have explosive repercussions. He pinpoints the source of Anna's trauma even as they become lovers and he runs afoul of her powerful father. Petrov, however, confident in public but a soul in torment in Otto'sstudy, remains an enigma. Otto is forced to make difficult moves in this human chess game, even as he plays an actual match with his famous violinist friend Kopelzon (in a treat for chess lovers, there are board-by-board reproductions of each move). A series of stunning surprises ends with Otto himself executing the key conspirator. A hugely enjoyable, brilliant high-wire act.
From the Publisher
Ronan Bennet's ZUGZWANG is a breathtaking, cliffhanging, breakneck race through the worlds of Russian chess, Bolshevik terrorism, and international espionage. Surely the most thrilling chess thriller ever written.” —Katherine Neville, author of The Eight
“Marvelous…irresistible: as melodrama, as psychological portrait, and as story of moral conflict.” —New York Times on The Catastrophist
“A splendidly stylish thriller…chronicled with the dark energy of Joseph Conrad and the cool irony of Graham Greene.” —San Francisco Chronicle on The Catastrophist
“Ravishing…call this a political story or a romantic history; either term suffices, but neither does it justice. This is a big novel, fueled by passion and ideas.” —Cleveland Plain Dealer on The Catastrophist
