Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #202245 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-30
• Released on: 2008-09-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Rich with historical detail and intrigue, Yarbro's 21st Count Saint-Germain novel (after 2007's Borne in Blood) unfolds in 18th-century Russia at the height of Peter the Great's effort to wrest St. Petersburg from the swamps and spearhead the modernizing of his nation. Benevolent vampire Saint-Germain plays both sides, contributing engineering suggestions to the czar's efforts and intelligence reports to the Polish monarchy. As usual, several difficulties threaten to expose his secret identity, and he battles ignorant and superstitious opposition to his enlightened teaching and doctoring skills. Though sluggishly paced in spots and minimally supernatural, this meticulously researched entry deftly displays Yarbro's ambitions to use her vampire hero as a lens to focus on the best and worst of human behavior throughout history. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The early days of St. Petersburg, at the dawn of the eighteenth century, come to life—frigid weather, fetid swamps, primitive conditions, and all—in Yarbro’s leisurely paced new Saint-Germain tale. Undercover as the husband of a Polish diplomat, Saint-Germain is attacked when inspecting one of the pumping stations he has designed to help drain the swamps. Taken to a care house, he befriends the Russian noblewoman and Dutch physician there, who are allowed to attend only supervisors and those living in the foreign quarter. Saint-Germain’s vampirism so takes a backseat to historical detail that historical-fiction readers as much as Saint-Germain stalwarts may be pleased. --Diana Tixier Herald

Review

Customer Reviews

One of the best in the series to date
*A Dangerous Climate* is the twentieth novel centering on Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's benign vampire hero, Count Ferenz Ragoczy Saint-Germain. I've been a fan of Yarbro's Count for thirty years, and this is one of my favorite of the novels so far.

The foundation of every Saint-Germain novel is a vivid and meticulously researched portrait of one or more times and places in world history, often one that is not commonly presented in fiction. *A Dangerous Climate* takes us to the year 1704 and the founding of the Russian city of Sankt Piterburkh by Tsar Piotyr I, or Peter the Great, at the mouth of the Neva River on the Baltic sea.

In the first chapter, night watchmen discover Saint-Germain right after he's been beaten so severely that he can't remember exactly what happened. A living man wouldn't have survived. Since Saint-Germain does, he spends the rest of the book trying to determine what happened, who wants him dead and when they'll make another attempt. The opening chapters describe his slow recovery, complicated by his need to conceal how well he's really doing from the physician and healers who are treating him.

We soon learn another unique aspect to Saint-Germain's situation in this story: he is not in Sankt Piterburkh as a lone "foreigner." The Count is visiting in disguise, pretending to be Arpad Arco-Tolvay, Hercegek Gyor, the missing husband of a Polish aristocrat, Zozia, Ksiezna Nisko. A gifted diplomat and spy for the Polish monarch, Augustus II, the Ksiezna must be escorted by a male relative in order to move freely among the foreign dignitaries in Sankt Piterburkh.

Saint-Germain's beating directly leads to his acquaintance with the independent Ludmilla Borisevna Svarinskaya, a Russian matron who has been rejected by her husband and is running a care house in Sankt Piterburkh. She earns Saint-Germain's admiration and respect, and eventually a closer relationship. But even as he juggles clandestine liaisons and extremely delicate politics, Saint-Germain is confronted with a crisis in his own affairs. While he has gone underground to impersonate the Ksiezna's husband, he learns that somebody else is impersonating him. His title, property and estates, under the care of a steward who sends regular reports to him in Sankt Piterburkh, are being claimed by an impostor. Now he has another problem to untangle, without unmasking his real identity to Piotyr and the other residents of Sankt Piterburkh or threatening the Ksiezna's mission.

The complications don't stop there. *A Dangerous Climate* features more in the way of complex puzzles and elaborate maneuverings than raw action. The plot spins out against the finely described backdrop of newborn Sankt Piterburkh--crude, muddy, cold and inhospitable, and yet filled with high born diplomats and ambassadors displaying all the luxury expected in a royal court, because Piotyr insists upon it. By the end of the book, we feel as though we've lived in Piotyr's city ourselves. As often is the case with Yarbro's novels, we're also deeply grateful that we don't live there now. But the conclusion of *A Dangerous Climate* is less grim than some of the other novels. Fans of the Count and new readers alike will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Fascinating setting, but story could have been better
I am writing this review from the perspective of someone who is interested in 18th century history and Russia, rather than a dedicated fan of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain series. I found A Dangerous Climate entertaining, but ultimately disappointing.

Yarbro gives the reader a sense of what life was like for the European diplomats who were living in Saint Petersburg during its founding: the physical hardships, and the intrigue and scheming. She also conveys the remarkable engineering and labor that went into the construction of St. Petersburg.

Unfortunately, the story suffers from a real lack of momentum. Yarbro sets up a number of promising subplots which are left unresolved. The diffuse plot is not helped by the author's tendency to indulge in details and scenes that do not meaningfully further the story.

Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain is an interesting take on a vampire, with his compassion that comes from thousands of years of witnessing man's inhumanity. However, the characterization of the secondary characters was mostly flat. Dialogue is not one of Yarbro's strengths: although there is a lot of talking in this novel, the characters tend to sound the same regardless of rank, education, and nationality.

Finally, Yarbro's Russian is marred by inconsistent transliterations, misspellings and incorrect grammar. She gives one of the female leads' patronymic as `Borisevna' (Borisovna would be correct). She also occasionally uses Russian words where English ones would do, and then gets the Russian wrong - both sloppy and pretentious of the author. It would be better to use correct English than incorrect Russian.

A Dangerous Climate could have been much better with a tighter plot, better characterization of the secondary characters, and a Russian language consultant. Fans of Yarbro's work will no doubt enjoy the book, but for the general reader who isn't already a committed fan, this one would be better to borrow from the library.

A subtle treasure
This is the 21st novel in Yarbro's long running Saint-Germain series. I've been reading the series since the very first one was published back in 1978. I would venture to say that after so long I know the Count well. Throughout the series he is a monster, and yet he is truly the one that is humane. Humans are the true monsters. What we do to each other far exceeds the depravations of any monster.

In this installment the Count is sent to Saint Petersberg at the behest of the King of Poland. The one wrinkle is that he isn't going as himself, but posing as the Hungarian husband of a spy and diplomat, who's real husband has been missing for some time. As a woman though she cannot venture to the burgeoning city on her own, but must be accompanied by her husband or other male relative.

The story opens with Saint-Germain being found by the Watchmen. He's been beaten so badly he can't even remember his attacker. If he wasn't a vampire, he probably wouldn't have survived the attack. He's taken to the care-house where he meets Ludmilla (forgive me for not giving the full name. I don't have the book in front of me and would probably end up misspelling it.) and Van Hoek. Saint-Germain must conceal how well he is healing while keeping his somewhat capricious "wife" happy. His position is somewhat compromised when Stanislaus replaces Augustus on the Polish throne, and his "wife's" brother is sent to Saint Petersberg. Saint-Germain moves into the care-house to make room for the brother in the Polish household. Besides helping with the functioning of some of the construction equipment he takes on the care-house as a project to help. To add to his problems an Hungarian comes claiming to be Saint-Germain's heir. Saint-Germain can't refute the claim without jeopardising his mission with the Polish crown. He asks Niklos Aulirios, Olivia's former companion, to impersonate him, and refute the claim.

Yarbro's attention to historical detail make the time period come alive. It is true that some things must be altered for the sake of narrative flow, but overall the feeling is one of authenticity. Some may quibble about the amount of time taken to describe the clothing and such. The details though serve to show how difficult the environment was in the burgeoning city. Nobles used to the pomp and circumstance of palaces and manner estates were forced to endure living in houses barely above the level of a shack while keeping all the conventions diplomacy required. They were dealing not only with the intricacies of court politics, but had to deal with gang violence as well. The founding of Saint Petersburg was a difficult period.

Yarbro's convention of taking a monster, in this case a vampire, and showing the creature to be the hero was unique at the time the books were first published. Through the eyes of this monster we see that the real atrocities are inflicted by humans against humans. Yarbro has explored religious intolerance, racial inequality, women's rights and other themes where humans will visit upon each greater horrors than one creature drinking blood to survive could ever conceive.