Honey for the Bears is a 1963 novel by Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess

John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

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Plot summary

British antique dealer Paul Hussey and his American wife Belinda travel to Leningrad for a holiday but with a suitcase of drilon dresses, which he plans to sell on the Soviet black market as a favor to the widow of his recently deceased friend Robert. Belinda develops a rash during the trip over and is taken to a hospital in Leningrad, leaving Paul to fend for himself while suspicious Soviet agents tail him.

Finding the USSR quite different from his preconceptions, Hussey has various sexual adventures — with both men and women — and seeks to secure the freedom of a descendant of a dissident composer.