The Culprits

After Hank Wallins, a lonely heart working the endless night shift as a computer operator, narrowly survives being struck by a subway train, he vows to change his life. On www.FromRussiaWithLove.com, he meets Anya, and soon sends her an airline ticket so that she might come and live with him in Toronto. When a troubling letter from St. Petersburg arrives on their doorstep, Hank unwittingly, and out of love for Anya, finds himself funding a terrorist scheme.

It is a testament to Robert Hough’s talent that the novel could as easily have been written by a Russian with both hard-won insights into his own culture and a surprisingly sharp eye for Canadian foibles. As it is, this exuberant, freshly detailed story of globalized love and disorder is a bravura performance, one part literary ventriloquism and one part ripping narrative.