“Kevin Howarth reads Snowdrops, AD Miller’s strong and gripping debut, in the sad, low, confidential tones of a confessional account, written by Nick Platt to his fiancée, of the disastrous time he spent in Moscow before he met her…Miller’s style is witty, zeugmatic and often urbane – Ikea, we learn, is as common in Moscow as “death, tax-evasion and cirrhosis” – and the atmosphere of deep-frozen winter and of almost universal corruption is shudderingly tangible.”
“The real protagonist of this elegant tale is the bleak Moscow winter that lawyer Nick lives through, its piles of filthy snow revealing corpses – or “snowdrops” – with the thaw. As Nick falls for Masha, it’s obvious to the listener that she is up to no good, but exactly what it is tautens the slow-burn suspense. Moscow’s vivid atmosphere, with its menace and rife corruption, is heightened by the narrator’s Russian-accented dialogue and the liberal sprinkling of contemporary Russian language. I loved it.”
“[A] dark first novel about cupidity, corruption and self-delusion…lust triumphs over ethics and [the narrator] allows himself to freefall into moral depravity. Taut, exciting, atmospheric – what a debut.”