Plague on Both Your Houses

A brand-new novel from New York Times bestselling author Robert Littell, A Plague on Both Your Houses is a thrilling tale of love and war. On Christmas Day, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivers a ten-minute televised speech announcing his resignation as Soviet president. Moments later, with little pomp and less circumstance, the red flag is lowered from its floodlit perch atop the Kremlin, and the Soviet Union ceases to exist. Into the vacuum--before a new democracy has time to put down roots--surges the Russian mafia, supplying what the new state cannot: krysha, or "roof"--protection for the privately owned businesses sprouting up across the country. Rivalries turn bloody as Moscow's Jewish mafia battles the Ossete vory v zakone (literally "thieves-in-law") for control of the city. Caught up in the mayhem, Yulia, only daughter of the Jewish mafia godfather, and Roman, only son of the Ossete mafia godfather, navigate the minefield of a star-crossed love affair as they attempt to escape a destiny that appears preordained. A Plague on Both Your Houses is the fictional story of one bloody episode in Moscow's Great Turf War, when clans fought brutally in the streets and the future of the Russian nation was anything but assured.