Bad Day in Minsk

Bad Day in Minsk
First edition
Author	Jonathan Pinnock
Cover artist	kid-ethic
Language	English
Publisher	Farrago Books
Publication date	2021
ISBN	978-1-78842-303-8
Preceded by	The Riddle of the Fractal Monks
Followed by	Last Chance in Vegas

Bad Day in Minsk is a book by Jonathan Pinnock. It is the fourth in the Mathematical Mystery series and was published by Farrago Books in April 2021.

Blurb

High Jinks in Minsk

Tom Winscombe is having a bad day. Trapped at the top of the tallest building in Minsk while a lethal battle between several mafia factions plays out beneath him, he contemplates the sequence of events that brought him here, starting with the botched raid on a secretive think tank and ending up in the middle of the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

More importantly, he wonders how he’s going to get out of this alive when the one person who can help is currently not speaking to him.

Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations.

Critical Reception

The reception to the book was generally extremely favourable.

Summary of Plot

Dorothy and Tom arrive at Arkady's flat to discuss recent developments regarding the Institute for Progress and Development. Arkady's niece and Dot Chan intern Katya is also there. Arkady starts by revealing that - as suspected - his friend Sergei removed the Vavasor Papers from the briefcase given to Tom at the climax of the events described in The Truth About Archie and Pye, thus saving them from the subsequent explosion. However, Sergei did not, as anticipated, manage to return the papers to Isaac Vavasor as he was forced to go into hiding. After this, Sergei became increasingly worried that he was being followed by someone, as it turned out, from the Institute for Progress and Development. After this, Sergei left the country, not saying where he was going. Three days ago, Arkady hears from Sergei's girlfriend Carla saying that Arkady has disappeared and that the papers have been stolen. The team conclude that the Institute is behind it and that they must break into their headquarters and steak them back.

Dorothy, Tom, Arkady, Katya and Balvinder, the other Dot Chan intern, break into the Institute for Progress and Development, aided by Balvinder's lock-picking skills. They fail to locate the Vavasor Papers, although Tom does find a file on Sergei Kravchenko, as well as someone called Dominic Bilston, who seems to have been killed in suspicious circumstances. However, it now turns out that they are not the only people there, as Helen Matheson and one of her cronies are also spying on the Institute. Helen kidnaps Tom and takes him to a safe house in Margate with the intention of blackmailing him into working for her. In the course of this, she uses his phone to give Dorothy the impression that Tom has been having an affair with her. Matheson's plan is for Tom to impersonate the chaotician Rory Milford, who has apparently been hired to do some work by one of the Belarusian mafia gangs, in order to find out what has happened to someone of interest to one of her clients: Sergei Kravchenko.

Tom is to travel to Minsk, pretending to be Rory Milford, but travelling under the name of Wilberforce. He will be met on arrival by Yevgenei Smirnov, who will take him to the Minsk Metropole where he will meet his client Nikita Petrov, head of the Petrov family. In the event, he is not met by Smirnov - instead he is picked up by Anya, who has apparently already disposed of Smirnov. Anya takes Tom to a camp in the forest near to the border with Ukraine, near Pripyat. This turns out to be the rural headquarters of the Gretzky family. Here he meets their current leader Yuliya Gretzky and the young prodigy and heir apparent Alexei Gretzky. It turns out that Alexei met the Vavasor twins when he was very young, and is something of an enthusiast for their work. Apparently Rory Milford also knew them, which is news to Tom. Alexei gives Tom a mathematical paper that he's written for him to evaluate.

Tom knuckles down to life in the camp, taking part in the activities and secretly trying to make sense of the equations that Alexei has given him, under the watchful eyes of Anya and her scary sidekick Novikov. Disaster strikes, however, when the Gretzkys hear of someone else arriving at the Minsk Metropole claiming to be Rory Milford. They show Tom a picture of him and it turns out to be Benjamin Unsworth. Tom manages to laugh the whole thing off, but decides that he needs to make a getaway. He steals a knife and some steaks from the kitchen and uses the steaks to keep the two guard dogs Fang and Slobber occupied while he sneaks out of the front entrance, taking Alexei's mathematical paper with him. After a terrifying journey through the darkened forest, he finds an abandoned cottage, breaks into it and beds down for the rest of the night.

He awakes to find that the cottage isn't abandoned after all, but very much occupied by Artem and his mother. Artem permits him to stay there and he and Grandma hide him from Anya and Novikov when they come looking for him. They celebrate that evening by getting very drunk on homemade vodka. The next day, Tom borrows Artem's phone and climbs onto the roof to get a signal. He manages to have a brief conversation with Benjamin Unsworth, having obtained his phone number from Margot Evercreech via his father. He gets Helen Matheson's number from Benjamin, but at this point the battery runs out and he has to come back down again. The power fails at this point, so he can't recharge Artem's phone. However, it turns out that Artem's son Mikhail, a lawyer, is due to arrive soon and he can give Tom a lift to Minsk.

A week later, Mikhail arrives and after a couple of very drunk evenings, he and Tom depart for Minsk. After evading a Jeep almost certainly sent by the Gretzkys, they arrive at the Minsk Metropole, where Tom checks in and asks the receptionist Svetlana where he can find Rory Milford, thinking that he will find Benjamin Unsworth that way. However, when he goes to Room 341, he is greeted by the real Rory Milford. Tom improvises wildly by claiming to be from the British Embassy and manages to steal a whole load of mathematical papers relating to the Petrovs that Milford has in his possession, before advising Milford to take the first plane back home. Svetlana then gives him a message from someone claiming to be Rory Milford, which turns out to be Benjamin this time, arranging to meet at a metro station. However, just before he is due to meet Benjamin, he is detained by a bunch of officials looking for a bribe and Benjamin aborts the meeting.

Back at the hotel, Svetlana informs Tom that Nikita Petrov would like to meet him now in his office on the top floor. Petrov wants to know why Rory Milford left suddenly after the meeting with Tom. However, the interview fails to proceed any further because at that point, they are alerted to the fact that the Gretzkys have mounted an attack on the hotel. In the confusion, Tom escapes from the Petrovs and gets as far as the lobby of the hotel, but finds himself trapped by Anya and her colleagues, who are currently working their way upwards, looking for something. Tom wonders if they're after Alexei's papers. He makes his way back to his room and hides out there, wondering what to do next as the battle between the Gretzkys and the Petrovs gets closer to him. In desperation, he uses the phone in his room to call Matheson, who refuses to help. Then he tries Dorothy. However, Ali picks up the call and unexpectedly offers to help by directing him to the emergency parachute in Nikita Petrov's office. He goes up to the office and uses the parachute to escape from the burning building.

After a bumpy landing, Tom evades a breakaway pair of mafiosi and manages to hunker down inside a boat in a repair yard, where he recuperates over the next few days. When he feels ready, he goes back to the metro station to make another attempt to meet Benjamin at the scheduled time. However, this time he is set up on by a couple of mafiosi, but is saved by Arkady, who informs him that Benjamin is safe and on his way to England, but Sergei is dead. It turns out that Mikhail is an old friend of Arkady's and asked him to keep an eye on Tom. Arkady takes him to his parents' farm, and on the way there explains that the real reason for the break-in at the Institute for Progress and Development was to find out information about one of their members, Julian Gowers, who was after the Vavasor papers and who Sergei was thus particularly interested in. It also turns out that the Vavasor papers were stolen from Sergei in Belarus, almost certainly by the Petrov family, and that Sergei offered his services to them in order to try to get them back. However, he was exposed and killed by them instead.

Arkady and Tom arrive at his parents' farm, where Dorothy has also unexpectedly arrived. Arkady and Dorothy are intending to set a trap for the Gretzkys by offering to give them Alexei's papers that Tom has brought with him. Dorothy's interpretation of Alexei's paper is that he intends to develop a mathematical trading system that will cause chaos in the world economy, to the benefit of the Gretzkys. Arkady thinks that Julian Gowers is providing funds for this market manipulation via the Institute for Progress and Development. Arkady's plan is to sell a suitably neutered version of Alexei's papers back to the Gretzkys. He also says he's intending to sell the Vavasor papers to Gowers, despite not actually being in possession of them. Dorothy and Tom both think he is mad, but there isn't anything they can do to stop him.

Gowers duly arrives, followed shortly afterwards by Alexei Gretzky, Anya and Novikov. All parties are duly disarmed prior to the exchange of papers. Instead of going through with any of the deals, however, Arkady plays a video made by Sergei Kravchenko just before his death, in which he reveals that the explosives used to kill Alexei's father Bruno were provided to him by Julian Gowers. Alexei grabs Anya's rifle and shoots Gowers dead. Immediately after this, Grandma Morozova shoots the rifle out of Alexei's hand from an upstairs window. and Arkady takes control of the situation again. Soon after this, Mikhail turns up with a contingent of police to arrest the Gretzkys.

Everyone sits down to celebrate the culmination of a successful plan. They decide that it would be best to destroy Alexei's papers in the furnace, and Tom also decides it would be sensible to destroy Milford's papers as well. However, it turns out just when it's too late to salvage them that they are in fact the Vavasor papers, given to Milford by the Petrovs. Any progress made by Tom in getting back with Dorothy is destroyed in an instant.

Back in the UK, Tom makes one last attempt to patch things up with Dorothy by taking her to see Matheson's safe house in Margate. However, there is no sign of Matheson or any of her cronies there, nor even any bars on the windows where they were last time Tom was there. The occupier is an elderly woman who claims to have lived there for years. Dorothy goes off in disgust, leaving Tom to lick his wounds. Tom goes back to stay with his father while he works out what on earth to do next.