[I've been
reading]
The Patriarch

Some of these books feel more phoned-in than others. This one intro’d a flurry of new characters only a few of whom had real roles and got confusing, with a plot that had a return to good food discussion (yay) and ancient-seeming Russian history (boo). I came out of it feeling I understood more about French/Russian relations over the last fifty years but still wasn’t sure who was related to who.