The Metronome

Brilliant.  The interweave of fact and fiction is beautifully done. I also learned a great deal I did not know about the siege of Leningrad. Combine this with the hero’s rather convoluted personal history and you have an excellent read. One of those books that always leaves you wondering how much of this is possible or plausible.  -Amazon Reviewer

The Metronome
(The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 1)

Pavel Rostin has taken too many chances. Once a promising physicist, he abandoned science for finance and risked everything on a speculative venture. Careless and rogue, he gambled with his personal relationships. As Pavel tries to pick up the pieces of his life, a call from Russia informs him that his father is dead.

When Pavel follows his father’s footsteps trying to solve the mystery of his death, he turns up some inexplicable clues. The investigation draws him deeper and deeper into his family’s past – and his country’s future. From starving 1941 Leningrad to free-wheeling Moscow of the mid-1990s to bubbly 2006 Wall Street, Pavel uncovers a web of money, murder, revenge and evidence of a plot involving the world’s superpowers. The choices of right and wrong don’t look as clear cut as in newspaper headlines. But is he just a pawn in someone else’s game?

The Metronome is the first book in The Counterpoint trilogy and a prequel to the earlier published The Great Game. The last book in the trilogy, The Outer Circle, will be published in April of 2015. The Great Game and The Metronome are largely independent, with only a minor overlap amongst the characters. The Outer Circle brings the heroes of the two earlier books together to conclude their journey.

About the Author

D.R Bell, I didn’t plan to become a writer. A few years ago, a friend’s death prompted me to ask what would be the one thing I regret not doing. I’ve always been an avid reader but have not had the courage to write. And I made a New Year resolution to write a book. That’s how it started. In a way, I feel fortunate to take up writing late in life: I no longer know everything and, since I don’t depend on it for my livelihood, I’m free to write what and how I like. I try to follow one of my favorite writers Milan Kundera in that “The novel is a meditation on existence.” I try to find something meaningful to say and I hope my novels speak to you.

The latest work, Eleos, is a historic fiction set primarily during the time of the Eichmann’s trial. In a way, it’s a personal investigation into how events like the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide become possible. It’s been over a year since I finished it; nightmares are mostly gone.

Marshland is a detective story set in modern Los Angeles, focused on the impact that internet and social media can have on our lives and their potential for unscrupulous abuse by those in power.

The first three books – The Metronome, The Great Game, and The Outer Circle – form a trilogy, where the lives of seemingly unconnected characters intersect against the backdrop of a turbulent power game between United States, China, and Russia. Unfortunately, some of the events described there are now happening in real life.