a nerve-wracking look at Stalinist Russia - where fear, paranoia and a ruthless instinct for survival rule every day decisions. I wasn't suprised to learn that the author is a screenplay writer as well, because you can almost see the movie playing in your head as you read every chapter!You will be transfixed by the backdrop of the story - which offers a chilling potrayal of 1950's Russia, just before and after Stalin's death. The novel is very well researched, offering accounts of the methods used by the MGB (Soviet State Security.. precursor to the KGB) to rid Soviet society of any semblance of dissidence. Even though the book is essentially a crime novel, the characters are very well developed, and serve to echo the helplessness and fear felt by people who lived in that era - a society with no freedom of choice or expression, where friendship and love are truly tested every day, where philosophers, thinkers and teachers are policed like common criminals. All for the sake of a cause, a "greater good" that started off as a cause worth dying for, and somewhere along the line, became a cause worth killing for.
The novel does read like a blockbuster movie mixed with philosophical musings (which are quite well written and not patronizing), and even though the premise does start to lose touch with reality towards the end, I was still hooked on to the very last page.. no easy feat with a 470 page novel!
