Title: Snowdrops
Author: Miller, A D
Published by: Atlantic Books
Year: 2011
First published: Atlantic Books, 2011
Date reviewed: 01.12
ISBN: 978 1 84887 453 4

This novel is set in present-day Moscow and evokes a believable atmosphere of smouldering and pervasive corruption. Some reviewers have found the plot dull and predictable, but I prefer to say that the story develops with slow inevitability as the central character is drawn into the deceit in which, in keeping with the Russian psyche, even the victims seem complicit. I found it an absorbing read and although the main character’s behaviour at the end might seem implausible I would still rate the book worth reading for the way it conveys the atmosphere of life in Russia.

“Snowdrops” was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize (won by Julian Barnes with “The Sense of an Ending”). The author A D Miller is not the Andrew Miller who won the Costa Prize in January 2012 with “Pure”.