While reading a thriller, I anticipate -- and usually get -- a twisty, testosterone-ridden plot. If I'm lucky, there's a strong female character; really lucky, a good sex scene. What I don't expect: a theory of socio-political hegemony centered around the idea of dissent. But Rana Bose's The Fourth Canvas is a novel of ideas as much as a thriller, with enough red herrings to make Agatha Christie proud, and enough progressive ideas to satisfy the most ardent activist.

Given today's tiresome climate of post-9/11 "national security" paranoia, this fictionalized account of post-WWII spying shenanigans potentially provides a healthy reminder that such a mindset has its foundation in the Cold War era. The Kremlin Betrayal posits the idea that Stalin was murdered by his own colleague (contrary to the historical recorded death of natural causes). Author Leon Berger presents this assassination as the result of Stalin's own well-documented obsession with the rewriting of history, coupled with the Western world's desperate fixation upon undermining the Soviet state and its leader.

The story centres on a gift that Stalin gave Hitler and that Stalin now wants returned so that any hint of friendship between the two is erased.