Set in the mid-1990s, The Nightingale tells the story of Tony Braden, a man with a rare talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Assigned as an information management worker at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Braden hires a Russian-language tutor, Nadya Kovalova, only to find himself falling in love with her. But it’s early times in post-Soviet Russia, and the embassy has not yet changed its policy against employees fraternizing with Russians.Tony is reported and sent back to Washington, where he kicks up a public fuss about the outdated policy, even taking time to write a novel, The Nightingale, “an exercise in anger management” in his words. When the contact policy is changed and the two lovers are free to be together, they make plans to meet for a summer holiday on Spain’s Costa Brava. Tony thinks his troubles are over; actually they’re just beginning.

Part love story, part spy story and part satire on the slow, byzantine ways of bureaucracy, The Nightingale takes a look back at a time when the world was changing so rapidly that people –and governments – were having trouble keeping up.