Red Russia by T.M. Thompson – Reviewed by Guy Portman
Tanya has accompanied her American entrepreneur boyfriend Peter to Russia on a business trip. She is there to act as his interpreter. Their hosts are a motley collection of shady businessmen-cum-organised crime members. The ensuing, preposterous, vodka-fuelled shenanigans entail guns, grenade launchers, prostitutes, nouveau riche properties, absurdly bedecked cars, and a lion.
Unbeknown to her beau, Tanya is planning to attain her own piece of the proposed business venture. But the duplicitous drug user and tarot-obsessed reprobate is playing a dangerous game.
Red Russia is a fresh, fun and frenzied post-Soviet satirical transgressive work, featuring a first-person female protagonist. The book is rife with humorous observations about the Russian psyche. This reader was intrigued by the insights into the organised crime group – Solntsevskaya Bratva. A clever idiosyncrasy is the utilisation in the Kindle version of red text to denote what is being vocalised in Russian.
While the story boasts a promising premise, there is not much in the way of a plot. Another criticism is that the escalating pandemonium and relentless capers do get somewhat trying.
