January 12, 1917: An ocean liner docks in New York Harbor. Among the disembarking emigrants is one Lev Davidovich Bronshtein--better known by his nom de guerre, Leon Trotsky. Bronshtein has been on the run for a decade, driven from his beloved Russia after escaping political exile in Siberia. He lives for--and is ready to sacrifice his life for--a workers' revolution, at any cost. But is he ready to become an American?

In the weeks leading up to the February Revolution that will eventually see Lenin's Bolsheviks seize power, Bronshtein haunts the streets, newspaper offices, and socialist watering holes of New York City, wrestling with the difficult questions of his personal revolutionary ideology, his place in his own family, his relationship to Lenin, and, above all, his conscience.

Master of the espionage novel Robert Littell brings to life the world-famous revolutionist's sojourn in the Bronx in this extraordinary meditation on purpose, passion, and the price of progress.