Volk's Game — Brent Ghelfi

A firefight reverberates through Moscows dark, rain-soaked streets; shattered glass and screams echo in the air. In the lawless ways of Russias capital city, the gunmen melt away into the night. Two men are dead, the targets not what they seem. A shadowy figure lopes along the riverbank outside the Kremlin walls. Known to all as Volk, a battle-hardened veteran of Russias brutal war in Chechnya, he prowls Moscows grim alleyways, a knife concealed in his prosthetic foot at all times. As both a major player in the black market and a covert agent for the Russian military, Volk serves two masters: Maxim, a psychotic Azeri mafia kingpin with hordes of loyal informers; and a man known only as the General, to whom Volk is mysteriously indebted. By his side is Valya, an exotic beauty charged with protecting her lover from his unsavory associates. Valya is the most dangerous weapon in Volks arsenal. Together they are commissioned to steal a long-lost da Vinci painting called Leda and the Swan from St. Petersburgs Hermitage Museum. Ledas ethereal radiance is undeniably captivating and incalculably dangerous. Volk must choose which powerful man he will betray in order to escape with the paintingand with his life. With the high-octane rush and vivid intensity of a feature film, Volks Game delivers at every turn, announcing Alexei Volkovoy as the boldest hero of a new generation.