Excerpt: Murder in Petrograd by Asya M. Pereltsvaig
Book details:
Book Title: Murder in Petrograd
Series: n/a
Author Name: Asya M Pereltsvaig
Publication Date: September 8, 2026
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 492
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers: murder
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Petrograd, 1916. As Russia is swept up in the maelstrom of war, Oswald Rayner, a bookish Oxford graduate, is sent by British Intelligence to Petrograd.
His mission is to curb Rasputin's influence and eliminate the man himself if needed. But Oswald soon realizes that his remit goes against his morals. Will he shirk his duty or be forever haunted by the blood on his hands and the burden of secrecy?
Murder in Petrograd re-imagines the web of forces surrounding Rasputin's murder in a gripping saga of obsession, politics, loyalty, friendship, love, and fate. Taking the reader from Russia in 1905 to Oxford and California fifty-five years later, the novel delves into the emotional lives of a wide cast of real historical figures to explore the central questions of power, complicity, morality, and destiny. Murder in Petrograd asks whether it is ever morally right to take the life of a human being, however repugnant and dangerous he might be. Blending archival research, immersive period detail, and vivid narrative reconstruction, it bridges scholarship and storytelling with cinematic scope.
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That night, Felix did not know, and could not know, that just two decades later, completely different nightly visitors — agents of Stalin’s secret police — would be similarly taking residents of this and other apartment buildings all across Russia to their death. A less glamorous black car would stop in the middle of an inner courtyard, and a man in a similarly long overcoat — though typically made of leather and not fur — would get out, leaving the driver and perhaps a guard or two behind. He would look up at his victim’s black windows as if giving him the last warning, then slowly go up the stairs, making sure that his heavy footsteps wake up — and terrify — all the residents of the apartment building. “Is he coming to our floor? To our apartment? Is he coming FOR ME?” would the petrified residents ask themselves. And then all of them but members of one family would sigh with relief, while their neighbor would be taken away, in most cases to never return home.
Those would be the horrors that Felix’s actions that night, and those of his accomplices, would in some part help bring about. But Felix did not know that: he silently went up the back stairs, thinking that he was going to save Russia.
Asya Pereltsvaig is a native of Saint Petersburg, Russia. After earning a BA in English and History and a doctorate in Linguistics and teaching at Cornell and Stanford, she turned to doing what she loves most: teaching Russian history in lifelong education and writing historical fiction.
Her debut historical fiction novel, centered on the assassination of Rasputin, is a sweeping saga of murder, love and fate. Her upcoming historical mystery series, Detective Rosen Mysteries, explores social tensions, political instability and the world of crime in the early 20th-century Saint Petersburg.
When she is not writing, Asya is an intrepid traveler, avid reader, and dedicated ballroom dancer.
Author Links:
Historium Press author page: https://www.historiumpress.com/hp-authors/asya-m-pereltsvaig
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001JS2AWS
Tour hosted by: The Coffee Pot Book Club
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