Perhaps you know a lot about your family. Maybe a genealogist great aunt has traced your family back to the Doomsday Book. My family, in contrast, barely escaped from the turmoils in Eastern Europe and I can only look back two generations. So I would not be surprised if a long-lost relative appeared on my doorstep. Which is exactly what happens to Dr. Natalie March, a child of Russian immigrant parents, who is suddenly visited at her office at the George Washington University Medical Center by a gorgeous young Eurasian ballet dancer who claims to be her cousin. Strange. Because Natalie's grandmother died in a gulag after being forced to give up her only daughter--Natalie's mother.
When that mysterious cousin is murdered (garroted, so probably not the casual burglary law enforcement says it is), Dr. March reluctantly travels to in-the=middle-of-nowhere towns like Yakutsk and Cherkeh in Northeastern Siberia. Land of the gulags so eloquently and excruciatingly described by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and, more recently, in Anne Applebaum's Pulitzer-prize winning book, Gulag.
There is suspense, CIA-backed intrigue and romance in this well-researched, beautifully written book (I loved the reindeer people). But...we expect no less from Elisabeth Elo. If you haven't yet...go back and read North of Boston, Elo's brilliantly crafted debut novel.

Katerina and her husband were sent to a Siberian gulag and their daughter Vera was raised by an uncle, who later brought her to America. Years later, Vera’s daughter Dr. Natalie Marsh is approached by a young Russian girl who claims to be her cousin. Amazingly, Katerina escaped from the gulag and eventually settled down with a second family. She is now in her 80s and lives in a small village with her other daughter. Vera is suffering from MS and a trip to Russia is out of the question but she asks Natalie to find Katerina and connect with her Russian family. Natalie’s story is one of discovery and mystery that offers vivid descriptions of a Russia that few people see.

When Natalie fails to meet up with her family, she is befriended by an American businesswoman who offers help in finding Natalie’s family.. She actually works for the CIA and in exchange for her help she asks Natalie to complete a simple assignment. Natalie’s cousin Misha was working for the CIA when he suddenly disappeared. She has now been asked to contact his friends and try to find out what happened to him. With nowhere else to turn, Natalie agrees. Promises are not kept, Murder occurs and Natalie becomes a wanted fugitive.

This story slowly evolves as Natalie considers her options and the consequences of her choices. Elizabeth Eto gives the reader descriptions of Russia’s prisons, village life and a remote herders’ encampment that have a cinematic quality to them. As Natalie discovers her roots and re-connects with family, it is often easy to get caught up in the story and travel with her.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Polis Books for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was received as an ARC from Polis Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I could not stop reading this book. It had it all non-stop action packed excitement with a enriched history that was so interesting and unexpected. While reading this book, it reminded me a lot of a Patterson series and how stories will take unexpected twists and turns just when the reader is starting to pick up on it. Who would have thought a well known surgeon such as Natalie March will have connections to the Russian Mob and the grandmother she thought was dead is very much alive and she goes on the search for her. This is a family reunion that is just way out of left field and she could risk it all just to save her family name. Also it was fun to learn more about the Russian government and all that it took to escape just to reunite their family.

We will consider adding this book to our Mystery collection at the library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

When Dr. Natalie March is approached by a young a Russian ballerina named Saks and informed that her maternal grandmother, thought to have perished in a Siberian gulag, is not only still alive,but that the dancer and her missing brother are her first cousins, she offers to do whatever she can to help the girl stay in the country legally. But that's not why she came before her two week via expires - she wants Natalie to go to Russia and investigate why her brother has been missing for weeks and her mother desperately needs her help. But first Natalie must break the news to her own assuming mother, who is too frail to make the journey but intrigued to learn that the woman she's right long dead in fact survived, married again, and had two more children after trying and failing to find the first-born daughter, who never tolhd Natalie much about her early life in Russia and would go herself to reknit the ties this bind if .she could. Before Natalie can decide, she gets word that her cousin, the dancer, has been murdered in New York, the apparent victim of a mugger. Now she had another reason to make the trip - to meet her aunt, whose son is still missing and whose daughter is dead,Why was she so eager for Saldana to get out of Russia and stay away ? And what can this American woman do to find her missing son?
This is a compelling story, and Natalie' s journey through Siberia, an exotic, rarely described region, is particularly well told.