Untraceable

"One of Russia's most interesting young novelists takes on Putin, poison and power in this unique novel; Lebedev provides a fascinating window on modern Russia."
—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Twilight of Democracy and Gulag: A History

The terrifying, lengthening list of Russia’s use of lethal poisons against its critics has inspired acclaimed author Sergei Lebedev’s latest novel. With uncanny timing, he examines how and why Russia and the Soviet Union have developed horrendous neurotoxins. At its center is a ruthless chemist named Professor Kalitin, obsessed with developing an absolutely deadly, undetectable and untraceable poison for which there is no antidote. But Kalitin becomes consumed by guilt over countless deaths from his Faustian pact to create the ultimate venom. When the Soviet Union collapses, the chemist defects and is given a new identity in Western Europe. After another Russian is murdered with Kalitin's poison, his cover is blown and he's drawn into an investigation of the death by Western agents. Two special forces killers are sent to silence him—using his own undetectable poison. In this fast-paced, genre-bending tale, Lebedev weaves suspenseful pages of stunningly beautiful prose exploring the historical trajectories of evil. From Nazi labs, Stalinist plots and the Chechen Wars, to present-day Russia, Lebedev probes the ethical responsibilities of scientists supplying modern tyrants and autocrats with ever newer instruments of retribution, destruction and control.

“A thriller dipped in poison … shares some of le Carré’s fascination with secret worlds and the nature of evil.”

— The New York Times

"Probing the ... horrors that science casually inflicts on people, animals, and the environment. Though Putin is never mentioned, his malevolent presence is felt throughout. A darkly absorbing intellectual thriller by one of Russia's boldest young novelists."

—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"The darkest impulses of science and power cross paths with human error and plots gone awry in Sergei Lebedev’s incisive and all-too-plausible Russian novel about nerve agents, assassination and secrets both political and personal."

—Will Englund, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post and author of March 1917: On the Brink of War and Revolution

"Turn off your television sets and get reading. Sergei Lebedev writes not of the past, but of today."

—Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

"Intense from start to finish ... Untraceable explores recent Russian history through the perspectives of its central characters, who embody the worst of the Soviet Union’s obsessions and excesses ... Intelligent and stunning, Untraceable is a character-driven thriller about the price of control."

—Foreword Reviews (Starred Review)

"Affirms his emergence as one of Russia’s leading writers ... Lebedev’s rich and ruminative writing raises important questions about the ethics and personal costs of perpetrating anonymous mass murder."

—Library Journal

"Sergei Lebedev is a marvelous writer with two rare gifts: a nobility of style and the most precise inner vision, which allows him to see and plumb the entire depth of the anthropological catastrophe that occurred in twentieth-century Russia. Lebedev has perceived what was invisible to most Soviet and post-Soviet writers."

—Vladimir Sorokin, author of The Blizzard, Day of the Oprichnik and Ice Trilogy

“A spellbinding insight into a secret world that we forget at our peril, a world of assassins, spies, patriots and poison masters whose shockingly evil decisions are made in their unwavering belief of serving a greater good. A thrilling, haunting, essential read."

—Rory MacLean, author of Pravda Ha Ha: Truth, Lies and the End of Europe

"One of Russia's most interesting young novelists takes on Putin, poison and power in this unique novel; Lebedev provides a fascinating window on modern Russia."

—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe

"Enthralling and exquisite, by one of modern Russia’s finest writers."

—Philippe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes against Humanity"

"The Russian government’s poisoning of political enemies provides the backdrop for this timely thriller ... Assured prose is a plus ... Those who prefer a more literary approach will enjoy the change of pace."

—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Sergei Lebedev’s earlier books:

“Lebedev is arguably the best of Russia’s younger generation of writers.”

—The New York Review of Books

“A Dantean descent ... as cold and stark as a glacial crevasse, but as beautiful as one, too, with a clear poetic sensibility built to stand against the forces of erasure.”

—The Wall Street Journal

“Astonishing ... ingeniously structured around the progressive uncovering of memories of a difficult personal and national past ... with a visceral, at times almost unbearable, force.”

—The Times Literary Supplement

Sergei Lebedev has gained renown for his unflinching and mesmerizing novels that confront Russian history head-on. In Untraceable, Lebedev takes a new direction in exhilarating and terrifying prose about Russia's long arm—its attempts to exert power beyond its borders and control the Russian diaspora and those who might spill its darkest state secrets. This fast-paced page-turner will bring his acclaimed writing to a far wider range of readers, including fans of thrillers and crime and espionage fiction executed with supreme literary flair and unparalleled historical consciousness.