A millionaire is killed. A golden statuette of a Buddha goes missing. A
penniless student, who is afflicted by dream-like fits, is arrested and
accused of murder.
In typically crisp, unfussy prose, Gazdanov's delicately balanced novel
is an irresistibly hypnotic masterpiece from one of Russia's most
talented émigré writers. Slipping between the menacing dream world of
the student's fevered imagination, and the dark back alleys of the Paris
underworld, The Buddha Returns is part detective novel, part
philosophical thriller, and part love story.