The Visiting Professor - Paperback

by Robert Littell (Author)

From legendary espionage writer Robert Littell, bestselling author of The Company and The Amateur, a character-driven post-Cold War romp following an ex-Soviet professor turned amateur detective who finds himself in upstate New York investigating the mysterious and sudden death of a colleague.

Lemuel Falk, a theoretical "chaoticist," has been denied permission to leave Russia for the last twenty-three years--likely because he knows a few state secrets. He is shocked when his twenty-fourth request is approved and he is offered a position as visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies in upstate New York.

As soon as Professor Falk arrives in America, a fellow professor dies under mysterious circumstances. When he agrees to assist in the investigation at the behest of local police, he is plunged into a new kind of chaos: a high-stakes academic catfight, an affair with a much younger woman, and cascading offers from domestic spies looking to capitalize on his knowledge--all while the ghosts from his past in Russia return to haunt him.

A wholly original novel from a master of intrigue, The Visiting Professor is a portrait of chaos theory, the limits of rationality, and the ironies of America.

Author Biography

Robert Littell is the author of twenty-one other highly acclaimed novels, many about the Cold War and the Soviet Union, including his masterwork, New York Times bestseller The Company, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award winner for best mystery-thriller Legends. An American born in Brooklyn, Robert Littell now lives in France.