The latest addition to my website is Sergei Lebedev‘s Белая дама (Lady of the Mine). The novel is set in the Donbas region of Ukraine in July 2014. The Russians have annexed Crimea and are causing serious disruption in Donbas. During the book they will shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.The town we are concerned with has a closed mine and in Shaft 3/4 we and most of the town know are the bodies of many Jews murdered by the Nazis but, also as we learn, many Russians killed by their own people, The eponymous heroine Marianna (called White Lady in the original Russian) was a laundress who could clean anything till the mine closed down. She and her fellow laundresses become symbolic of good, though she dies during the course of the book , leaving an adult daughter who does not inherit her mother’s cleaning power. Two Russians, former residents, return to cause trouble for the Ukrainians and, one case, to investigate Marianna. Good versus evil is the theme here and while evil may pay a price, we know how it will turn out. Another first-class book by Lebedev.