In a Russian restaurant on Paris's Left Bank, Russian exile Golubchik alternately fascinates and horrifies a rapt audience with a wild story of collaboration, deception, and murder in the days leading up to the Russian Revolution. “Worthy to sit beside Conrad and Dostoevsky’s excursions into the twisted world of secret agents. Joseph Roth is one of the great writers in German of this century; and this novel is a fine introduction to this view of intrigue, necessity, and moral doubt.” The London Times