Pavel & I: A Novel

An electrifying, suspenseful novel set during the winter of 1946-47, one of the coldest on record, Pavel & I unfolds against the tattered social fabric of postwar Berlin. Pavel Richter, a decommissioned GI, finds himself at odds with a rogue British army colonel and a Soviet general when a friend deposits the frozen body of a dead Russian spy in his apartment. So begins the race to take possession of the spy's secret, a race that threatens Pavel's friendship with a street orphan named Anders and his budding love for Sonia, his enigmatic upstairs neighbor. As the action hurtles toward catastrophe, the hunt merges with one for the truth about the novel's protagonist: Who exactly is Pavel Richter?

"Pavel & I has plenty of plot (including a dead midget in a suitcase), a crowd of desperate characters (including a whore with a heart of tarnished gold) and an unusual narrative scheme-but most of all, it has atmosphere, a vividly rendered time and place: Berlin in the frigid winter of 1946-47, rubble, starvation and no brakes on anyone's instinct for self-preservation."-New York Observer

"The novel is grotesque, sometimes funny, and completely chilling, a wonderful re-creation of the Europe of 1946. Dan Vyleta is a name to watch."-Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Impressive … Readers in search of a good story will find one here."-Denver Post