December 1991. Beautiful American banker Alice Liddell has arrived in Moscow as it reels under the collapse of the Soviet Union and suffers a brutal war between mafia gangs for control of the violently changing city.   Hired to oversee the privatization of Russia’s legendary vodka distillery—the Red October—Alice soon finds her ideals compromised by its director Lev, a gangland member as dangerously seductive as he is ruthless.   When a shadowy enemy vows revenge on Lev, and a series of bizarre serial murders erupts in the darkest corners of the city, Alice finds herself being drawn into the dangerously violent underground world of Moscow.   “[A] dense, captivating novel of modern-day Russia . . . so fascinating that delighted readers will gulp it down like the novel’s free-flowing, ubiquitous vodka.”—Publishers Weekly   “A potent crime thriller cocktail.”—Library Journal