The Laughter of Carthage

Dmitri Pyatnitski (otherwise known as Colonel Pyat), hero of Byzantium Endures, continues his progress through the twentieth century in the second volume of his ‘memoirs’.

It is 1919 and Pyat – genius, braggart, addict, bigot par excellence, survivor – finds that escape from the horror of the Russian Civil War is complicated – and not only because his steamer is heading the wrong way round the Black Sea. Setting foot on shore is dangerous, and there are predators of another kind aboard the vessel. But the hazards of the European countries in which he seeks refuge are as nothing to the perils awaiting him in America, land of the free, where the aristocrats in the white hoods are every bit as menacing as the crooks in the black hats…