Moscow Underground

'A gripping thriller and Belkin is a character many readers will want to encounter again' THE SUNDAY TIMES

'Remarkable … If only all first novels were as enthralling as this' FINANCIAL TIMES

'Merridale’s talents as a Russia expert and writer combine to beam light on the depths of Moscow’s underworld' THE SUN

Moscow, 1934. When a body is discovered during the construction of the glittering new Moscow subway, Investigator Anton Belkin wants nothing to do with the case. It will mean asking difficult questions of all the wrong people, and Anton has a very personal reason to keep his head down. But he has not reckoned with Vika, his former lover and now influential member of the secret police, who is adamant Anton is the best man for the job.

Buried in the tunnels beneath the capital is a dangerous secret, but one entangled in a sticky web of political and personal rivalries, deceptions and betrayals. Soon Anton must choose between his conscience and saving those he loves from the vengeful grip of the Soviet state.

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‘Both a brilliant thriller and a historical record of the ambition, terror and deviousness of that black era in Russian history’ Gareth Rubin, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Turnglass

Reviews

A Times and Financial Times Book of the Year

'A gripping thriller and Belkin is a character many readers will want to encounter again' The Sunday Times

'Remarkable… Merridale, an acclaimed historian of Russia, showcases her knowledge of the country and its dark past to bring a richly-drawn cast of characters to life in a marvellously evoked 1930s Moscow. If only all first novels were as enthralling as this' Financial Times

'Merridale’s talents as a Russia expert and writer combine to beam light on the depths of Moscow’s underworld' The Sun, four-star review

'Catherine Merridale is a very well-known historian of Soviet Russia, so in Moscow Underground an engrossing thriller set in Stalin’s Moscow, she knows whereof she so beguilingly write… It’s intensely exciting, but also moving; and, as you’d expect from the author of Merridale’s history books, it tells us a lot about Stalin’s Russia – including why men and women fought for it, and stayed in it'

The Tablet

‘Gripping, moving and fascinating. A heartbreaking and passionate novel of the cruelty and fragility of love, death and life in Stalinist Russia by a great storyteller who also happens to be an outstanding historian. I loved it’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of the Moscow Trilogy

‘Both a brilliant thriller and a historical record of the ambition, terror and deviousness of that black era in Russian history’ Gareth Rubin, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Turnglass

‘Moscow´s subway system was built to transform an old imperial capital into a modern Soviet metropolis but digging deep in the very heart of an empire can unleash the fates. Moscow Underground excavates the very foundation of the Russian state, a daring journey to the origins of Stalinism, all the more timely because in contemporary Russia the figure of Stalin is making an ominous comeback’ Sergei Lebedev, author of The Lady of The Mine