Dueling, kidnapping, and murder combine with drawing-room flirtation, deception, and betrayal to create the intense, thought-provoking narrative of Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time. The novel recounts the adventures of Grigory Pechorin, an enigmatic Russian officer stationed in the Caucasus Mountains in the 1830s. Here he mingles with Russians and mountain tribes-people who clash in the frontier territory in southern Russia. Lermontov tells a story that continues to resonate though time and can still be read in today's headlines.