The Baku Inheritance
Azerbaijan, 1890. When Anton Sabroski returns home after years away to find his father on his deathbed, he is horrified to discover the once-wealthy oil baron has been declared bankrupt, and the family’s oil fields are now in others’ possession. To Anton’s amazement, his father has left him a mysterious package with a Fabergé egg and his will, which requires Anton to retain in his employment Klara, a puzzling and intriguing young woman.
But Anton has another reason for returning to Baku. He wants his talented friend Rafiq to design an oil tanker according to top-secret specifications that would permit it to use the Suez Canal. As Americans and European vie for control of the Caspian oil fields, Anton and Rafiq are caught up in a brutal clash between some of the world’s richest men, and Klara has her own secrets.
Kennedy immerses us in the melting pot that is Baku, where local companies have long-sought to exploit the vast oil fields around the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest, land-locked body of water. Muslims, Christians, Jews and Armenians have co-existed uneasily in this far-flung outpost of the Russian empire, always subject to Tsarist rule as imposed by the Okhrana, or secret police. The arrival of foreign carpetbaggers upsets this fragile equilibrium and raises the stakes. The number of characters and their plots and counterplots makes for mesmerising reading, but at times I struggled to find my way through the maze. A character list would have been helpful.
In a background note, the author explains the historical events that inspired her and which of her characters are real and which fictional. Overall, a gripping novel that will especially appeal to readers who like unusual settings and historical fiction that informs as well as entertains.
