I've been reading about Stephenson for a while and wondering where to start with him. This seemed (and was) the perfect place, one of his latest (2024) and the first in a new series (Bomb Light). I liked it a lot and found it surprisingly accessible. The picaresque story of Dawn Rae Bjornberg, born in Montana but largely raised by her Ukranian Communist stepfather in Soviet Russia where she's known by her patronymic and the Russian version of her first name, Aurora. As a teenager she slips between nations and identities and ends up - for this volume - spying for Beria in Moscow in 1934. She is bilingual and smart but her special talent on both sides of the political divide, is polo - hence the title.
The story is dense but fairly races along and Dawn/Aurora is always great fun to be around, whether she's advertising sensible shoes at the World's Fair in Chicago or being tortured by Stalin's goons in Siberia. This being the early Thirties, she has a fascination with Bonnie and Clyde and reference is made to her time with the Borrow Gang - but that is clearly for a future instalment; we don't see it here. And this is how Stephenson really hooks us. By chopping locale and timeframe he introduces us to things that have happened to Dawn or Aurora before they actually happen, for example, the question of a child she says she had and 'lost'.
I know Stephenson has published a second instalment - called simply D, so no clues there) and I can't wait to read it. Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye out for work from his back catalogue.
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