The Champagne Wagon : A Russian Journey Paperback / softback

Young British miner Harry Speares is no admirer of Josef Stalin.

But when his communist father Joseph goes to work at the headquarters of Moscow’s global subversive network, the Comintern, he reluctantly accompanies him - lured by promises of an education denied him at home. In the Hotel Lux, foreign communist leaders live alongside exiled anti-Nazi fighters, teachers, writers and spies.

Here, Harry meets Rosa Zander, a beguiling German woman who verses him in the mysterious rites of his new home.

Rooms hum with debate, laughter and music. Children play in the corridors. But for Harry, the outsider, there is something unsettling about those Lux ‘believers’ so set on remaking the world. When Nazi Germany rises to pose a challenge to the Soviet Union, Stalin turns against his loyal servants in the Lux.

Rosa struggles to explain a bloody betrayal that infuriates Harry.

As Harry is drawn reluctantly into the darker corners of Comintern operations, his attachment to Rosa grows, alongside his fear of her.

Through it all, Harry’s attachment to her grows, as does his fear of her.

Is she friend, sweetheart or jailer? Desperate to escape Russia, he embarks on a perilous journey into Moscow’s criminal underworld that leads him to the gates of the British Embassy.

Where he goes, Rosa follows.