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Fiction The wretched empress THE IMPERIAL WIFE By Irina Reyn 276 pp. St. Martin’s Press Reviewed by Dennis Rizzo The Imperial Wife  leaves us pondering the lives of Catherine the Great, Russian Empress, and Tanya Kagan Vandermotter, Russian Arts Specialist for fictional, upscale New York auction house Worthingtons. Either way, we are immersed in a world of immeasurable wealth, hauteur, and emotional ennui. Early on, we see that the label “imperial wife” could refer alternately to Tanya or Catherine. In fact, Reyn organizes the book as a series of back-and-forth chapters; at one point talking about Tanya’s rising star and failing marriage, at another discussing Catherine’s rising fortunes and despondent regal fiancé. Tanya’s entrance to wealth and privilege may as well refer to Catherine’s entrance into the world of Czarist Russia.   Can you even imagine an immigrant girl who finds herself in a gilded auction house, a junior cataloguer trainee in a palace of glass and white wal...