City of Thieves

Leningrad, 1941. In a city under siege, subsistence was both tenuous and tediously time-consuming. Sought-after items in the black market included glasses of dirt soaked in melted sugar from underneath a bombed food warehouse and “library candy” made from the binding glue of books.

Caught ransacking the body of a German parachustist after curfew, 17-year-old Lev was thrown into a cell with Kolya, a Red Army soldier who missed his ride back to the line because of a romantic dalliance. Breaking curfew usually resulted in execution, but Kolya and Lev were spared by a colonel who wanted eggs – an unimaginable luxury – for his daughter’s wedding cake.

Their search takes them into enemy territory and constant danger. Forced to rely upon each other, they both find unexpected inner strength, but the real star of this book is the Russian temperament, simultaneously capable of great despair and stoic endurance.

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