Difference between revisions of "Bad Day in Minsk"

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Back at the hotel, Svetlana informs Tom that Nikita Petrov would like to meet him now in his office on the top floor. Petrov wants to know why Rory Milford left suddenly after the meeting with Tom. However, the interview fails to proceed any further because at that point, they are alerted to the fact that the Gretzkys have mounted an attack on the hotel. In the confusion, Tom escapes from the Petrovs and gets as far as the lobby of the hotel, but finds himself trapped by Anya and her colleagues, who are currently working their way upwards, looking for something. Tom wonders if they're after Alexei's papers. He makes his way back to his room and hides out there, wondering what to do next as the battle between the Gretzkys and the Petrovs gets closer to him. In desperation, he uses the phone in his room to call Matheson, who refuses to help. Then he tries Dorothy. However, Ali picks up the call and unexpectedly offers to help by directing him to the emergency parachute in Nikita Petrov's office. He goes up to the office and uses the parachute to escape from the burning building.
 
Back at the hotel, Svetlana informs Tom that Nikita Petrov would like to meet him now in his office on the top floor. Petrov wants to know why Rory Milford left suddenly after the meeting with Tom. However, the interview fails to proceed any further because at that point, they are alerted to the fact that the Gretzkys have mounted an attack on the hotel. In the confusion, Tom escapes from the Petrovs and gets as far as the lobby of the hotel, but finds himself trapped by Anya and her colleagues, who are currently working their way upwards, looking for something. Tom wonders if they're after Alexei's papers. He makes his way back to his room and hides out there, wondering what to do next as the battle between the Gretzkys and the Petrovs gets closer to him. In desperation, he uses the phone in his room to call Matheson, who refuses to help. Then he tries Dorothy. However, Ali picks up the call and unexpectedly offers to help by directing him to the emergency parachute in Nikita Petrov's office. He goes up to the office and uses the parachute to escape from the burning building.
  
After a bumpy landing, Tom evades a breakaway pair of mafiosi and manages to hunker down inside a boat in a repair yard, where he recuperates over the next few days. When he feels ready, he goes back to the metro station to make another attempt to meet Benjamin at the scheduled time. However, this time he is set up on by a couple of mafiosi, but is saved by Arkady, who informs him that Benjamin is safe and on his way to England, but Sergei is dead.
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After a bumpy landing, Tom evades a breakaway pair of mafiosi and manages to hunker down inside a boat in a repair yard, where he recuperates over the next few days. When he feels ready, he goes back to the metro station to make another attempt to meet Benjamin at the scheduled time. However, this time he is set up on by a couple of mafiosi, but is saved by Arkady, who informs him that Benjamin is safe and on his way to England, but Sergei is dead. It turns out that Mikhail is an old friend of Arkady's and asked him to keep an eye on Tom. Arkady takes him to [[Grandma and Grandpa Morozov|his parents']] farm, and on the way there explains that the real reason for the break-in at the Institute for Progress and Development was to find out information about one of their members, [[Julian Gowers]], who was after the Vavasor papers and who Sergei was thus particularly interested in. It also turns out that the Vavasor papers were stolen from Sergei in Belarus, almost certainly by the Petrov family, and that Sergei offered his services to them in order to try to get them back. However, he was exposed and killed by them instead.
  
More to come.}}
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Arkady and Tom arrive at his parents' farm, where Dorothy has also unexpectedly arrived. Arkady and Dorothy are intending to set a trap for the Gretzkys by offering to give them Alexei's papers that Tom has brought with him. Dorothy's interpretation of Alexei's paper is that he intends to develop a mathematical trading system that will cause chaos in the world economy, to the benefit of the Gretzkys. Arkady thinks that Julian Gowers is providing funds for this market manipulation via the Institute for Progress and Development. Arkady's plan is to sell a suitably neutered version of Alexei's papers back to the Gretzkys. He also says he's intending to sell the Vavasor papers to Gowers, despite not actually being in possession of them. Dorothy and Tom both think he is mad, but there isn't anything they can do to stop him.
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Gowers duly arrives, followed shortly afterwards by Alexei Gretzky, Anya and Novikov. All parties are duly disarmed prior to the exchange of papers. Instead of going through with any of the deals, however, Arkady plays a video made by Sergei Kravchenko just before his death, in which he reveals that the explosives used to kill Alexei's father Bruno were provided to him by Julian Gowers. Alexei grabs Anya's rifle and shoots Gowers dead. Immediately after this, Grandma Morozova shoots the rifle out of Alexei's hand from an upstairs window. and Arkady takes control of the situation again. Soon after this, Mikhail turns up with a contingent of police to arrest the Gretzkys.
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Everyone sits down to celebrate the culmination of a successful plan. They decide that it would be best to destroy Alexei's papers in the furnace, and Tom also decides it would be sensible to destroy Milford's papers as well. However, it turns out just when it's too late to salvage them that they are in fact the Vavasor papers, given to Milford by the Petrovs. Any progress made by Tom in getting back with Dorothy is destroyed in an instant.
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Back in the UK, Tom makes one last attempt to patch things up with Dorothy by taking her to see Matheson's safe house in Margate. However, there is no sign of Matheson or any of her cronies there, nor even any bars on the windows where they were last time Tom was there. The occupier is an elderly woman who claims to have lived there for years. Dorothy goes off in disgust, leaving Tom to lick his wounds. Tom goes back to stay with his father while he works out what on earth to do next.}}

Revision as of 21:42, 18 July 2022


Bad Day in Minsk  
Bad Day in Minsk.jpg
First edition
Author Jonathan Pinnock
Cover artist kid-ethic
Language English
Publisher Farrago Books
Publication date 2021
ISBN 978-1-78842-303-8
Preceded by The Riddle of the Fractal Monks

Bad Day in Minsk is a book by Jonathan Pinnock. It is the fourth in the Mathematical Mystery series and was published by Farrago Books in April 2021.

Blurb

High Jinks in Minsk

Tom Winscombe is having a bad day. Trapped at the top of the tallest building in Minsk while a lethal battle between several mafia factions plays out beneath him, he contemplates the sequence of events that brought him here, starting with the botched raid on a secretive think tank and ending up in the middle of the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

More importantly, he wonders how he’s going to get out of this alive when the one person who can help is currently not speaking to him.

Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations.

Critical Reception

The reception to the book was generally extremely favourable.

Summary of Plot