Vodka Neat

By Anna Blundy

Book Overview

Her motto: "Courage without equal""Truth without bullshit""Vodka without tonic" "Faith Zanetti is everyone's favorite messed-up war correspondent."- Sarah Weinman, "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193460934X
• ISBN13: 9781934609347
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Felony & Mayhem
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

If you've been an expat in Russia...

...then you will love this book. It's so much fun, from its hardboiled heroine to its grotesque send up of Russia c. 1989/1997. Blundy's eye, not just for the details of time, place and culture, but for a foreigner's love-hate relationship with an adopted landscape, is really wonderful.

A Thriller Made Excellent by Descriptions of Russia and Soviet Union

In VODKA NEAT, Faith Zanetti is a 35-year-old English journalist, a foreign correspondent. Her current assignment is to Russia simply because she lived there 16 years ago when it was the Soviet Union so knows the language. She finds as soon as she arrives the second time that she is suspected of a gruesome double murder that occurred the first time. So Zanetti now needs to find the Russian husband she married all those years ago, when she was 19, and then left behind when she returned to London. He was with her when they discovered the bloody bodies. This novel certainly is a mystery/thriller as Zanetti, drinking a lot and talking tough throughout, unravels this mystery: what really occurred in the Soviet Union, and what is occurring in Russia? But VODKA NEAT is excellent because the mystery/thrills include descriptions of the Soviet Union as it was and Russia as it is and her life as an innocent 19-year-old in one and as a tough 35-year-old in the other. Zanetti's comments are sarcastic and witty. For example, at one point, Zanetti is talking about McDonalds when she was in the Soviet Union. "My friend Adrian always used to steal the napkins, straws, toilet light bulbs, and loo roll. So did everyone in Moscow, so in the end they locked the light bulbs into immovable globes and stopped providing everything else." Another example: "These days a lot of Moscow looks quite beautiful, if a bit inhospitable and imposing. Mayor Luzhkov cleaned it up for a big anniversary, but he didn't clean up any of the bits where foreigh dignitaries weren't going to see. These are the bits where everyone lives." Obviously, the author, Anna Blundy, has been here herself. As a matter of fact, she lived and worked in Russia as a journalist. So when she shows us the Soviet Union and Russia, we really do see them the way a Western journalist would find them. She's sarcastic and witty. And her Faith Zanetti is authentic.

a very enjoyable read

Fast paced, mesmerizing and featuring soul weary, boozy foreign correspondents, "Vodka Neat" was an enjoyable and exhilarating read from beginning to end. Posted to Moscow by the Chronicle, foreign correspondent, Faith Zanetti, has mixed feelings about coming back to live and work in Russia. The last thing she expected however was to be arrested on suspicion of murder almost as soon as she'd landed. About sixteen years ago, a young couple was found brutally murdered in their apartment. Faith, who was nineteen at that time, was married to a Russian black marketer, Dimitri Sakhnova, and living and working illegally in Moscow. Then, Demitri managed to keep her out of the investigation. Now, however, the police claim that Demitri has confessed to the crime and has implicated her in the crime as well. Faith is flabbergasted; admittedly she was blindingly drunk on that fateful night, but surely she would remember killing two people with an axe? Fortunately, the police have practically no evidence implicating her and let her go. But now Faith is on a mission: to clear her name and find out what exactly Demitri is up to. Little does she know that she's about to step into a web of deceit and murderous jealously... Fast paced and completely compelling, I finished "Vodka Neat" in one sitting. It was the kind of exciting and enjoyable new read that one is always relieved and thankful to find. I really enjoyed the author's tongue-in-cheek prose style and the manner in which she structured the novel, going backwards and forwards in time, showing us Moscow in the 1990s and Moscow today. Also her character portrayals were vivid and totally believable. All in all this was a first rate read. Light and almost breezy manner in spite of it's subject matter, and featuring a female protagonist that is both charming and capable and full of wonderfully intriguing plot twists, I'd recommend "Vodka Neat" to any mystery reader looking for something a little different to savour.

strong Russian investigative thriller

Sixteen years ago as a nineteen years old newlywed Russian Faith Zanetti emigrated from her home country to England to start over after the horrific scandal that destroyed her marriage though she has come home for short visits since she left town. She obtained work as a war correspondent for the London based Chronicle, but now her life has gone full circle. Her foreign editor Tamsin assigns the vodka guzzling cigarette smoker to be their new Moscow correspondent. However, she is stunned upon her arrival to learn her former spouse Dimitri Sakhnov who confessed to a murder in 1989 insists he never killed anyone; he said he took the blame for his then wife Faith; she is the killer. Faith visits Dimitri at the psycho ward only he is not there. Instead American Adrian Smith is being held. Adrian tells her Dimitri is dead and soon afterward so is he. Faith believes Dimitri lives and orchestrates events; with help of her boyfriend she plans to find and confront the rogue she was once married to. Faith is a great protagonist who holds together this strong Russian investigative thriller as her personal issues are as powerful as her need to bring Dimitri to justice, preferably without the Moscow police involved. The story line is fast-paced, but driven by Faith and the support characters especially the Muscovites as readers will be hooked by her seemingly solo (with her American boyfriend) belief that her ex is alive. Harriet Klausner

Neat Vodka - Pure Russia

This gripping murder story is set in post-Soviet Russia and captures that strange, frightening but exhilarating place brilliantly. The characters fascinate and the plot is wonderfully unpredictable. The heroine, Faith Zannetti, is more of an anti-heroine but one can't but love her all the same - I just hope she is not about to retire but will return soon. And you'll love the duck shooting from a tank (military tank, that is)scene - entirely realistic, I can assure you.