Gaito Gazdanov, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf ***

During the Russian civil war, a young man gets separated from his unit and kills a soldier in the remote forest. The killing haunts his life. Many years later, he reads a short story which recounts the killing from the victim's point of view. He sets out to find the writer of the story.

The plot of The Spectre of Alexander Wolf involves a short story, and I think the book would have been stronger as a short story itself. The setup and the narrative are good, but the characters' musings about fate and guilt are too repetitive and the romance is not totally relevant.