Margolis, Sasha, (The Tsimbalist [pb, self-published, 2016]) 978-0997060102 [a 340-page historical whodunit, romance, and cultural exploration set in 1871 Imperial Russia. Avrom is an unpretentious town barber, musician (a player of the tsimbl, or hammered dulcimer), local mensch, and accidental detective. In the small lakeside village of Balativke, the delicate social balance between Russian Orthodox Christians and Jewish residents is shattered when a young Russian aristocrat, Arkady Olegovich Efimovski, is found murdered. The body is discovered near the home of Koppel, a poor local Jew. As local police flounder and a rising tide of anti-Jewish scapegoating threatens the community, Avrom steps in to search out the true killer himself. Avrom’s investigation forces him to explore complex alliances, class divides, religious oppression, and secret romances. The case exposes deep-seated fault lines between neighbors, ultimately revealing that very few people in the town are who they seem. [Google/AI]
International · Fiction author
Sasha Margolis
Sasha Margolis (est. birth 1990?) - Sasha Margolis is an American violinist, singer, actor, and author, currently active in the classical and Jewish music scenes as of 2026. He serves as the violinist, vocalist, and storyteller for Big Galute, an eclectic Jewish music band. His immersion in the Klezmer music they perform directly inspired him to write his debut novel. He has toured across the US, Italy, and Japan. He has written theatrical pieces (such as The Tale of Monish), award-recognized short stories, and nonfiction essays on classical music, but no other novels so far..
Has one published book, The Tsimbalist, set in a Russian shtetl in 1871, in which a local barber-turned-detective has to solve a Russian aristocrat’s murder in order to avert a pogrom.