Requiem for the East

An extraordinary, profoundly moving and thought-provoking novel tracing the rise and fall of communism through its impact on three generations of one the narrator’s grandfather, who deserted from the Red Army in the chaotic aftermath of the 1917 revolution; his father, who survived the Eastern front in WWII only to be killed with his wife in one of Stalin’s purges; and the narrator himself – Soviet army doctor turned spy who, after the fall of communism, discovers his missing girlfriend was betrayed by a double-agent and flies to Florida bent on revenge. A searing portrait of the suffering caused in the name of politics, yet also a celebration of ordinary people’s decency, compassion and courage.