Anastasia — Colin Falconer

'Falconer's grasp of period and places is almost flawless ... He's my kind of writer.' - Peter Corris, The Australian 'Some men don't fall in love, they get lost. I was lost from the moment I saw Anastasia Romanov in the taxi club that first night ...' When Michael Sheridan jumped into the Whangpoa River to save a woman he had met in one of Shanghai's taxi clubs, his life changed irrevocably. A Russian refugee, Anastasia Romanov bears an uncanny resemblance to the princess of the same name, who was rumoured to have survived the brutal murder of her family at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries. The fate of the last Czar's youngest daughter has become one of the most talked about mysteries of the time, but Michael's Anastasia is suffering from traumatic amnesia and remembers nothing of her life before Shanghai. So who is she? Unraveling the mystery of Anastasia's identity and past takes them both from the streets of Shanghai to the decadence of pre-war Berlin, from the London of flappers and Charlestons, behind the grim curtain of Bolshevik Russia and finally to New York just before the Wall Street crash. 'Falconer weaves a pacy story of obsession, love, greed and corruption ... Really well done.' - Sydney Morning Herald