LAST RED AUGUST: A Russian Mystery

N.Y.: Scribners, 1993. 1st ed., with complete number line beginning with 1. Fine in dust jacket with protective mylar cover. Set in Russia at the time of the attempted coup of 1991. "This fast-paced, highly engaging political thriller begins on the eve of the attempted coup against President Gorbachev in August 1991. Written by a policy analyst, and briskly translated by the author of the Russian detective Ivan Duvakin series, this thinly disguised roman a clef probes into the backgrounds of those responsible for the abortive coup and the frantic events that led to their downfall. A secretary who discovers a discarded planned announcement of the impending military takeover is found out by the KGB and winds up dead. Andrei Alekseevich, a young "half-wild intellectual" and Yeltsin supporter, also inadvertently learns about the planned coup from his father, Georgi, a hardliner and high-ranking military officer. Andrei is eventually kidnapped and confined to a plush dacha to sit out the coup--but not before he can pass on what he knows to an American journalist and to a former classmate who works for a Moscow paper. Malashenko does a smart job depicting the psychological strain between Georgi Alekseevich and his son and in showing the greater tensions between the coup plotters--aging generals more interested in their limousines, perks and speciality stores than in planning a decisive military action--and the "new" Russia--the idealistic, yet unformed generations which rally to protect Boris Yeltsin at the Russian White House." -- Publishers Weekly. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. Book.