Kidnapped

From Ludmilla Petrushevskaya,New York Timesbestselling author and Russias greatest living absurdist, comes an elaboratefamily drama, social satire, and burlesque of twists, coincidences, and hijinks.Kidnappedis a madcap crime spree that caroms from crisis to crisis, through lands real and imagined. It tells the tale of Sergei Sertsov, not one but two boys from Moscow with more than just a name in common, and the women who go to great lengths to protect them. The story unfurls in a whirlwind of deceit and double crossingbabies are switched at birth, documents forged, palms greased, identities assumed, deaths faked, and authorities duped. Across decades and continents, the narrative veers from a trade office in tropical Handia, to Russia as it plunges through perestroika and into post-Soviet free fall, to a mansion in opulent Montegasco at the start of the twenty-first century. With a dizzying array of characters and settings,Kidnappedis a hilarious saga of determined women triumphing over their many oppressors to save the people they love.