One single phone call is all it took to change Lena
Polyanskaya's life: the call came from her friend Olga
Sinitsyna regarding her younger brother Mitya who has
recently died, and his death has been ruled a suicide, and
he also is thought of like a drug user. To those who know
Mitya very well, the conclusions don't add up: Mitya is not
a drug user, and what reason could he have for committing
suicide, unless something darker and more sinister is at play?
Desiring to have Mitya's name cleared, Lena agrees to play
an amateur detective. This particular investigation will
take her from her home in Moscow to Siberia and will also
force her to confront a conspiracy that was designed to hide
the truth about Mitya's suicide. And how it is connected to
the murder of six girls in 1980s, the time when she and her
friends traveled there for a magazine spread.
Best way to describe MADNESS TREADS LIGHTLY is like putting
a jigsaw puzzle together or playing with Rubick's cube. The
story has one twist after another, and instead of it being
linear, it seems to be all over the place, which is a good
thing in my opinion because it forces the reader to pay
attention to the characters and events surrounding them.
Other factors I loved is seeing Russia of my childhood and I
loved the psychology and how the author sets up the
conspiracy. I had no idea whom to trust and whom to believe.
Also, the reader will be trying to figure out how these
disparate events will connect with one another.
Something that did bother me is that the story reads more
like the beginning of a series, and as far as I know other
books by the author aren't translated into English. Since I
really enjoyed MADNESS TREADS LIGHTLY, the withdrawal will
be acute, and there will be frustration that there aren't
more books in English about Lena Polyanskaya and people she
knows.
For a wonderful psychological read as well as a mystery that
is written correctly with an amazing cast of characters and
where the reader will not see how it will all end, pick up
MADNESS TREADS LIGHTLY because the reader will be blown away
by the story.
Only three people can connect a present-day murderer to a
serial killer who, fourteen years ago, terrorized a small
Siberian town. And one of them is already dead.
As a working mother, Lena Polyanskaya has her hands full.
She’s busy caring for her two-year-old daughter, editing
a successful magazine, and supporting her husband, a
high-ranking colonel in counterintelligence. She doesn’t
have time to play amateur detective. But when a close
friend’s suspicious death is labeled a suicide, she’s
determined to prove he wouldn’t have taken his own life.
As Lena digs in to her investigation, all clues point to
murder—and its connection to a string of grisly cold-case
homicides that stretches back to the Soviet era. When
another person in her circle falls victim, Lena fears she
and her family may be next. She’s determined to do
whatever it takes to protect them. But will learning the
truth unmask a killer…or put her and her family in even
more danger?