The Man from St. Petersburg

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 16,362 ratings

Price: 20.25

Last update: 01-30-2025


About this item

"Ken Follett has done it once more...goes down with the ease and impact of a well-prepared martini." (New York Times Book Review)

His name was Feliks. He came to London to commit a murder that would change history. A master manipulator, he had many weapons at his command, but against him were ranged the whole of the English police, a brilliant and powerful lord, and the young Winston Churchill himself. These odds would have stopped any man in the world - except the man from St. Petersburg.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Bob Gilstein
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greats
    Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2024
    I first read this about 20 years ago. Read again recently. A great read; a great examination of the whys of WW I, of the upper class of pre-war England, and of the strength of family.
  • AntiochAndy
    4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, But...
    Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2001
    In many ways, this is vintage Ken Follett. It is fast-paced and keeps you wanting to see what is going to happen next. The writing is good and he does a good job of developing his characters and plot. He also seems to have a good feel for English society in the period immediately before WWI. Despite all this, however, I found myself less than satisfied with the overall result. He gives you Feliks, a Russian anachist and murderer who is on a misguided mission to stop an attempt to negotiate an alliance between Britain and Russia because he is convinced that millions of Russian peasants will die. It never seems to occur to him that the coming war will involve Russia anyway and that millions of peasants will die with or without an alliance. Then Follett tries to make Feliks a sympathetic character. He has been badly wronged in his life. Well, for me, it didn't work. Feliks was still a misguided terrorist bent on murder. Then you get the usual improbabilities: women whose misguided sympathies cause them to let Feliks get closer to his target than he ever would; Feliks miraculously escaping capture despite all odds; and Feliks resorting to a completely improbable tactic at the end. The climax finds Feliks resorting to a tactic that can best be described as using an elephant gun to kill a flea. He needs to flush out the Prince in order to get a shot at him, but Follett would have us accept that Feliks would endanger all that he seems to hold dear in the process. Churchill's action at the end to retrieve the situation was clever plotting, but seemed obvious to me as soon as it was clear what Feliks was going to do. I'm rather thought it would have occurred to Feliks, too. It would have been another good reason to not do what he did.
    In many ways, "The Man From St. Petersburg" is a good read. For me, though, it asked me to go farther in suspending disbelief than I was prepared to go. The clever ending was a little too clever, and left me somewhat less than satisfied.
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Follett's Pre-Revolutionary Russian Spy Thriller
    Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2017
    Follett's second international best-seller was a resounding success but not the juggernaut blockbuster that Eye of the Needle had been four years previously. Nonetheless, it was good enough. This tale is set at the dawn of World War One, when the novel's antagonist/protagonist a Russian anarchist named Feliks Kschessinsky is determined to assassinate one Prince Aleksey Orlov, a Russian admiral who is for the purposes of the storyline a nephew of the real-life Tsar Nicolas II and the fictional Earl of Walden. The Earl's Russian wife the Countess Lydia had once had a premarital affair with Feliks, who was sent to Siberia for the the rest of his natural life while she was forced to make a pre-arranged match with the English nobleman. Feliks escaped from prison many years later, joins an anti-Monarchist anarchist group and makes his way to London when he learns that the young Admiral has brokered a deal to forge an alliance between Russia and Britain should Germany go to war. He also strikes up a friendship with Lydia's susceptible, innocent, but rebellious daughter Lady Charlotte, which is when the plot really gets going. This is a fast-paced story that will satisfy any bookworm although it lacks the spine-tingling suspense that heightened the drama in Eye of the Needle, still considered by many to be Follett's finest.
  • Steven
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good, Bad and Ugly!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2024
    This story has a lot of good parts, but not a whole lot. It started out to be interesting, then a huge lull about the Walden family and their cast system. It was amazing how this one man had avoided all kinds of attempts to catch him. And, where were all those police & Army personnel to protect everyone? It go ridiculous that Charolete could sneak past them and sneak past them again to get her “father” into the house. Also, with all the love Charolete and her Mother had for Russia, there was no mention of the slaughter of the Czar and his family. You would think that would have turned her against the socialist. This is the Ugly.
  • Jack
    4.0 out of 5 stars Eat the meat, spit out the bones.
    Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2018
    I am not sure that Follett is not an anarchist himself as the anarchist villain of the story is portrayed with such high regard. You know, the only one in the story with laudable principles. The end justifies the means here. No doubt about it.

    He does his usual capitalistic trick of extending the story unnecessarily through predictable delays and sidetracks in the plot. Some of his takes stretch the limits of credulity in order to make a really bad guy look superhuman.

    His storyline includes a good amount of historical data that seems plausible, especially as it relates to the suffrage movements principles and the broad outline of the workings of nations.

    True to form, everyone conservative is a villain to Follett.

    Clever writing, sometimes tedious but still worth reading.

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