“My name is Nothing, my surname is Nobody” – this saying of Gulag prisoners is an epigraph to the meticulously researched third novel in the author’s Moscow trilogy. Here, given not only a name but a powerful personality, is Benya Golden, imprisoned in the Gulags but innocent. Set in Stalingrad in the sweltering summer of 1942, the gripping story traces Benya’s journey as he joins a penal battalion to fight the Nazis and undertakes a perilous Russian cavalry mission. In this searing tale of love and war, most moving is the redemptive relationship between a soldier and a nurse that blooms amid the brutality.
The novel is a homage to the author’s favourite Russian writers and – in its vivid depiction of “horsemen riding across sunbaked grasslands in times of unrelenting cruelty” – the western masterpieces of Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. Such influences pervade this atmospheric tale, told in the author’s distinct own voice.
• Red Sky at Noon by Simon Sebag Montefiore is published by Century (£16.99). To order a copy for £14.44, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
