A Gentleman in Moscow is a 2016 novel by Amor Towles. It is his second novel, published five years after his New York Times best seller, Rules of Civility (2011). Background. The protagonist is the fictional Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 24 October 1889. He was raised on his Rostov family's estate "Idlehour" in Nizhny Novgorod.