Review
Russian Gambit by Laureline Ducros (Wattpad Author Profile: The_Mafia_Gal ) is a breathtaking spy thriller set in the glamorous and shady world of organized crime.
Labelled as both, as a mafia romance and spy thriller, Ducros defies all the cliches of the traditional mafia romance by creating a strong yet delicate heroine, capable of holding herself beside an ingenious and elusive Russian undercover agent tasked with the near impossible mission of taking down the world's most powerful crime syndicate.
Throughout the book, Ducros manages to surprise and even astonish not only with an elaborately staged and fast-paced plot, but with the depth and complexity of her characters. In her characters the noblest of ideals go hand in hand with moral compromise - there is no black and white, but a raw and tantalizing touch of realism.
Glamorous locations, in depth-research, but most of all elaborately staged deceptions and conspiracies are the tools of Ducros' trade. A masterful storyteller.
Rating: 5/5
Summary
The shadowy world of the Russian Mafia is rarely a welcoming one to those who unwittingly stumble into it. For most it means death, but for a few it spells a fate far worse.When Sophie Akehurst, a beautiful and astute politics student who moonlights as a bartender at the London Savoy, inadvertently bears witness to the secretive dealings of the Vor V Zakone, she gets mercilessly dragged into a sinister world ruled over by a powerful consortium of underworld barons whose ties stretch to the highest echelons of power - from the White House to the Kremlin.Sold as a toy to the highest bidder, Sophie finds herself at the mercy of Alexei Ronov, an elusive baron of the secret arms trade. But Ronov proves himself to be a man of many faces - and just as many secrets. And in a world of high-stakes power games, such secrets can lead to the unlikeliest of alliances.