A devastating novel of love and desire and one man's search for his soul in a world of violence and political intrigue, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award 1998

St Petersburg, 1914. Dr Otto Spethmann, a famous psychoanalyst, is implicated in a murder. But he is preoccupied with Avrom Rozental, the brilliant chess master who is due to play the most important competition of his life but is on the verge of a breakdown.