Two fine firsthand accounts by Bill Browder and Peter Pomerantsev expose the hidden madness gripping Moscow
The most famous firsthand accounts of Russia have come from times of great national convulsion. These were the moments when the bulldogs burst out from under the rug, and started tearing chunks out of each other, out of the room and out of random bystanders: the Bolshevik revolution; the show trials; the perestroika years; the chaotic 1990s. John Reed, Fitzroy Maclean, David Remnick and Chrystia Freeland all produced fantastic books during those periods but, as long as they stayed alive, they almost had it easy. They just needed to make sure they had enough pens and notebooks, and to keep their eyes open.As is abundantly clear from the inquiry into the 2006 murder with polonium-210 of Alexander Litvinenko, which opened in London a fortnight ago, modern Russia still excels at extreme violence. But assassinations are far rarer now than they were 20 years ago. Vladimir Putin has managed to bring politics in-house: to urge, entice and kick the dogs back under the carpet. Having done so, he de-fanged them: the political parties, the oligarchs, the media, the courts, the Chechens. Power struggles now take place in the offices of the Kremlin, in the dachas along Moscow’s Rublevka, in palaces by the Black Sea, and on yachts on the Mediterranean. We learn who won and who lost after the fact; the Kremlinologists are back in business.
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Bantam Press- NZ$37.99 - Publication 5 February 2015.
Some of the other review comments:
"Reads like a classic thriller, with an everyman hero alone and in danger in a hostile foreign city … but it’s all true, and it’s a story that needs to be told." - Lee Child
"The story of Sergei Magnitsky's life and death is a shocking true-life thriller, and Bill Browder was the man to write it." - Tom Stoppard
"A sizzling account of Mr Browder's rise, fall and metamorphosis from bombastic financier to renowned human-rights activist ... Reads more like a financial thriller than a real-life story." - The Economist
"An expose of years of state-sponsored torture and murder ... this story of courage combined with a dash of obsessiveness is about the real here and now." - Sonia Purnell, The Independent
"The cut and thrust, and the high stakes, make for a zesty tale." - William Grimes, New York Times
"Browder's narrative lays out in vivid detail the often murky mechanisms of Russia's kleptocratic economy, culminating in an engrossing account of what would surely be the heist of a century were it not so representative of business as usual. It's also a chilling, sinister portrait of a society in which the rule of law has been destroyed by those sworn to enforce it. The result is an alternatively harrowing and inspiring saga of appalling crime and undeserved punishment in the Wild East." - Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating and unexpected story - including the fact that my work played Cupid." - Mitch Albom, author of 'Tuesdays With Morrie'
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