The Devil's Halo

Through the eyes of the Finnish publisher, Moscow was the city where Europe met Mars. Magnus Hakkinen, head of Kirja Press, envisioned himself a worldly man. In his civilized city of Helsinki, art nouveau and technological wizardry flourished in a natural bosom of sea and forest. But Moscow would never be civilized. Not as long as its rulers were eight oligarchs who took their morality cues from Ivan the Terrible. While their mistresses binged on million dollar watches in the boutiques of the Kutuzofsky Prospekt, old people died of hypothermia on the curb. Every building in Moscow seemed belligerently oversized. Every gold dome hid rot under the surface. Magnus sniffed as a passing bus belched black smoke. Fifteen years after the bloody gangster wars, Moscow remained the capitol of soulless hustlers and casino whores. An enigma wrapped in a sushi bar inside a European design boutique.