Kyiv

Description

The gripping new thriller from Graham Hurley, KYIV is set against the backdrop of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's all-consuming invasion of the Soviet Union. 'Historical fiction of a high order' The Times 'Original and compelling... The fear enveloping Kyiv as the Soviets flee radiates from every page' Financial Times On Sunday 22nd June 1941 at 03.05, three-and-a-half million Axis troops burst into the Soviet Union along a 1,800-mile front to launch Operation Barbarossa. The southern thrust of the attack was aimed at the Caucasus and the oil fields beyond. Kyiv was the biggest city to stand in their way. Within six weeks, the city was under siege. Surrounded by Panzers, bombed and shelled day and night, Soviet Commissar Nikita Khrushchev was amongst the senior Soviet officials co-ordinating the defence. Amid his cadre of trusted personnel is British defector Bella Menzies, once with MI5, now with the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. With the fall of the city inevitable, the Soviets plan a bloody war of terror that will extort a higher toll on the city's inhabitants than the invaders. As the noose tightens, Bella finds herself trapped, hunted by both the Russians and the Germans. As the local saying has it: life is dangerous - no one survives it. Kyiv is part of the SPOILS OF WAR Collection, a thrilling, beguiling blend of fact and fiction born of some of the most tragic, suspenseful, and action-packed events of World War II. From the mind of highly acclaimed thriller author GRAHAM HURLEY, this blockbuster non-chronological collection allows the reader to explore Hurley's masterful storytelling in any order, with compelling recurring characters whose fragmented lives mirror the war that shattered the globe. 'You could read a lot of books before you found a tale better told' The Times 'This is a masterful novel: a war narrative, a spy thriller, and a historical fiction steeped in meticulously-researched factual detail' Dr Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth

Graham Hurley is the author of the acclaimed Faraday and Winter crime novels and an award-winning TV documentary maker. Two of the critically lauded series have been shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculier Award for Best Crime Novel. His thriller Finisterre, set in 1944, was shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize. Follow Graham at grahamhurley.co.uk

You could read a lot of books before you found a tale better told * The Times * A masterful novel: a war narrative, a spy thriller, and a historical fiction steeped in meticulously-researched factual detail -- Dr Christine Berberich, University of Portsmouth If you are unaware of what happened in Kiev after the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, Kyiv may be an eye-opener. To anyone not yet familiar with Hurley's superb wartime thrillers, it certainly will. Graham Hurley - already a respected crime writer with some thirty titles under his belt - has established himself in the pantheon of thriller writers who have set novels in and around WWII and his books sit comfortably alongside those of Philip Kerr, Ben Pastor, John Lawton, Alan Furst and David Downing * Shots Magazine * The fear enveloping Kyiv as the Soviets flee radiates from every page. Like Red Traitor, this is historical fiction of a high order * Financial Times * With distinct echoes of John Le Carre set against the desolate spectacle of the siege, Kiev's occupation and all the compromises and atrocities committed by all sides, this is a starkly evocative tale of wartime bleakness and the hall of mirrors of espionage in times of conflict. Grips you from end to finish and deserving, as Hurley invariably is, of much more attention than he has been getting of late * Crime Time * Could not be more timely * The Times *