Kyiv

By: Graham Hurley

Narrated by: Andrew Cullum

A blockbuster thriller set against one of the most horrific scenes in the Second World War.

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 Caucuses 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 Krushchev 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.

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.

©2021 Graham Hurley (P)2021 Head of Zeus

Critic reviews

"A searing portrait of the Nazi elite as the war turns against them. Raw, shocking and meticulously researched." (Tim Sebastian)

Don’t Waste Your Time

I have never disliked a book that I wanted to like as much as I do this one. It has great potential, and I kept hoping that it would reach it. Instead it turned out to be a complete waste of time. I have no clue why that author wrote it other than to focus on the historical incidents surrounding the occupation of Kiev by the Germans.