Conspirators

"Beautifully written, intricate and entrancing."--Jaroslaw Anders, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Galicia, Austria-Hungary, 1913. In the castle of a frontier town, on the border between Europe and the East, the corrupt Count-Governor Wiladowski watches helplessly while a wave of assassinations sweeps the empire, and his province. When a member of his own family is murdered, the count gives broad police powers to his spymaster, Jakob Tausk: a brilliant young Jew whose ruthless war on terror extends into every corner of the province and beyond, enlisting union organizers, financiers, aristocrats and their servants, and a young novelist and playwright, newly arrived in the Vienna of Franz Josef and Freud, hungry for literary success.

"Bernstein creates a vivid cast of characters and does a superb job of evoking the feverish intellectual atmosphere of Middle Europe.... A pleasure to read." --Jamie James, The Wall Street Journal

"Bernstein gets it all right. Conspirators emotionally compelling and intellectually exhilarating, splendidly re-creates a forgotten world."--Dan Cryer, Newsday

"Grandly old-fashioned...Bernstein maintains firm control of his plot, and painstakingly re-creates the historical landscape."--The New Yorker

Michael André Bernstein is a frequent contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and The New Republic. He is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.