Rating: 
Summary: As good as Gorky Park -- NOT!
Review: Started strong, then lost its way. The relationships between the main characters goes from interesting to tedious. I quit about three fourths of the way through.
Rating: 
Summary: Started off intriguing, but became utterly ridiculous.
Review: This book began with intriguing characters and plots, especially the look at the New Russia, but quickly became absolutely ridiculous. The author (was it his/her first book??) tried to cram everything into the plot...prisons, greed, sex, animal rights, smuggling,politics, racial politics and on and on for a mish mash of not really much of anything...I couldn't finish it and I was on a delayed airplane!!
Rating:
Summary: Glacial Pace
Review: This book opens with a fast-paced series of scenes involving a promising hero and his partner, who, alas, are quickly killed off. Then the REAL story begins, rather like a locomotive pulling too much freight: very s-l-o-w-l-y. The freight is a ton of background information about the miseries of modern Russia, and the author wants us to have it all. After 60 pages, the train hadn't even left the station, and I gave up. There may be a great story there somewhere in the next 380 pages, but the author didn't make it worth my while to find out.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: This is a very original,very exciting fictional tale that brings into play some interesting insight into possibilities for penal reform.What is happening in this story apparently is happening right under our noses here in the good old democratic USA.I will not go any further so as to not spoil it for those of you that have not yet read this book .Suffice it to say that you should do so as soon as possible.It is fast moving intrigue that is hard to put down.When you are finished you will feel like you just finished an exciting journey through Siberian taiga.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down.
Review: This is not just another Russian mystery novel. Robin White's character development is great and he develops a truly unique Russian environment for his story to play itself out. Great reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Uneven, but worthy
Review: This should have been great. It had a new conspiracy - the theft and enslavement of US prisoners shipped to Siberia to work on a pipeline. The slaughter of Siberian tigers by poachers and the tremendously exotic setting of Siberia. Instead, it was okay. The detective was complex and a well developed character, but the author tried too hard to hammer home her point about the endangered Siberian tiger, even falsifying her facts as reported by the zoologist. I agree with her position and believe that the truth is bad enough and exaggeration merely undercuts her position.Three years ago, Gregori Nowek--a geologist whose criticisms of Soviet oil-drilling got him banished to frozen Irkutsk--was elected mayor of his new town with the slogan ``Can I Do Any Worse?'' How can you resist this sort of hero? His wife is dead, his daughter a typical teenage and he's making do in the incredibly corrupt new Russia when he's assigned to solve a murder, probably because it's assumed he will fail. His inquiries lead to an American-Russian business venture that no one wants disturbed -- so his continued search for truth is discouraged. But he's in love!!! So of course, he becomes SuperDetective and saves the day for his daughter, the Siberian tigers and his one true love!!! At times it's quite funny and reasonably enjoyable, but the heavyhanded political message coupled with the improbable success of our hero put this high on the top of the As If! list.
Rating: 
Summary: terrific post-Soviet thriller
Review: To a reader's delight, and what must be the great pain of the Russian populace, Russia has gone from being an ideal setting for thrillers because of a totalitarian system that made just about everything illegal, to an ideal setting for thrillers because of it's complete lawlessness. Siberian Light finds Gregori Nowek, a geologist & mayor of an oil boomtown in Irkutsk, Siberia (his slogan was "Can I Do any Worse?"), investigating the murders of Andrei Ryzkhov, an intermediary for the AmerRus oil company which is drilling for Siberian light crude oil, and of two of his own militiamen, who went to investigate why Ryskhov's dog was barking. Nowek's superior, Arkady Volsky, wants him to conduct the investigation, but State Prosecutor Gromov has other ideas & turns loose ex-KGB Major Kaznin. The investigation leads Nowek, & his loyal-but-cynical driver Chuchin, to Tunguska & the AmerRus base, but along the way he has run-ins with the local mafia, falls in love with Dr. Anna Vereskaya, a tiger biologist with an uncanny resemblance to Nowek's wife who died three years earlier in an Aeroflot crash. Just to further complicate life, his 16 year old daughter Galena runs away. There's a lot going on here, but White manages to keep all of the plates spinning and his portrait of life in post-Soviet Russia is fascinating. GRADE: B+
Rating:
Summary: Thriller with depth.
Review: White's chrarcters display the decadence, byzantine corruption and beauty of contemporary (and perhaps always) Russia. A page turner, tour of the landscape, and highly recommended winter distraction - although the ending is a `little' bit much. As well as a first class thriller, this novel displays glimpses of a very promising writer. I will buy his next book. Keep writing Robin!
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