Red Sky at Noon

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What to expect

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Red Sky at Noon by Simon Sebag Montefiore, read by Simon Bubb.

'The black earth was already baking and the sun was just rising when they mounted their horses and rode across the grasslands towards the horizon on fire …’

Imprisoned in the Gulags for a crime he did not commit, Benya Golden joins a penal battalion made up of Cossacks and convicts to fight the Nazis.

He joins the Russian cavalry, and on a hot summer day in July 1942, he and his band of brothers are sent on a desperate mission behind enemy lines.

Switching between Benya's war in the grasslands of Southern Russia, and Stalin's plans in the Kremlin, between Benya's intense affair with an Italian nurse and a romance between Stalin's daughter and a journalist also on the Eastern Front, this is a sweeping story of passion, bravery and human survival where personal betrayal is a constant companion, and death just a hearbeat away.

'A master storyteller – his fiction is compelling' GQ

'A natural storyteller who brings his encycolopedic knowledge of Russian history to life in language that glittlers like the ice of St Petersburg.' Washington Post

Critics Review

  • The black earth was already baking and the sun was just rising when they mounted their horses and rode across the grasslands towards the horizon on fire …’

    Imprisoned in the Gulags for a crime he did not commit, Benya Golden joins a penal battalion made up of Cossacks and convicts to fight the Nazis.

    He joins the Russian cavalry, and on a hot summer day in July 1942, he and his band of brothers are sent on a desperate mission behind enemy lines.

    Switching between Benya’s war in the grasslands of Southern Russia, and Stalin’s plans in the Kremlin, between Benya’s intense affair with an Italian nurse and a romance between Stalin’s daughter and a journalist also on the Eastern Front, this is a sweeping story of passion, bravery and human survival where personal betrayal is a constant companion, and death just a heartbeat away.

    from the publisher's description

  • Mythic and murderous violence in Russia…there are power-drunk Nazis and Soviet traitors, including a particularly memorable villain …Written with brio & deep knowledge of its fascinating subject matter… a deeply satisfying pageturner.

    Book of Month, The Times

  • A gripping historical novel with a panoramic sweep

    The Mail on Sunday

  • In this third volume of The Moscow Trilogy, the fate of combatants and civilians is often harsh. With his feel for vivid and immediate drama and impressive research, the author evokes the extreme turbulence and violence impacting on individuals. Writing with passion, Montefiore makes the point that, up against the huge forces of war, the struggle for personal resolution can be tragic — but never wasted.

    Daily Mail

  • The final instalment of Montefiore’s loosely connected Moscow Trilogy: amidst the killing and the chaos, a group of prisoners are offered a chance of redemption on a secret mission behind enemy lines on horseback. Montefiore has a keen sense of place and an eye of unexpected details. Switching between the frontline on the Russian steppes and Stalin in the Kremlin, this is an EXCITING FAST-PACED ADVENTURE AND A LAMENT FOR LOVE IN DARK AND BRUTAL TIMES.

    Mail on Sunday

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