Perestroika: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth

Dark. Full of deals – and death. João Cerqueira’s PERESTROIKA: EYE FOR AN EYE; TOOTH FOR A TOOTH (categorized as Historical Fiction) is a thinly veiled picture of the USSR before and after Gorbachev’s reign. Queues for food, corruption at the highest and lowest strata of government, basic decency hard to find in this country called Slavia. Though no one character stands out, most from Ionescu at the top to Tobias the drug seller, look at life as a hard scrabble, time to make a killing (literally and figuratively). Readers looking for redemptive qualities will find it in a well-written narrative that’s fast paced, with a few individuals seeking a better life.