Simon Montefiore: Red Sky at Noon

In many ways this is meant to be a homage to some of my favourite writers: I have mentioned Isaac Babel and Mikhail Sholokhov. But even though this is a very Russian, very Soviet and very Second World War novel, it is impossible to write about horsemen riding across sunbaked grasslands in times of unrelenting cruelty without recalling the brilliant Western masterpieces of Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard. This is also a homage to them.

I am hugely grateful to my superb editor and publisher Selina Walker for her delicate, energetic, tireless and sensitive editing, but also her sense of fun and comradeship on this and the other two novels – and to her assistant Cassandra Di Bello. Thank you to Mel Four, who designed this glorious cover. Thanks to my outstanding and irrepressible super-agent Georgina Capel and her team: Rachel Conway and Romily Withington (who have now sold these novels into twenty-seven languages) and her dynamic film/TV maestro Simon Shaps. Thanks to Lorenza Smith for the Venetian and Italian details; to Jonathan Foreman for his excellent editorial advice; and to my nephew Major Johnny Hathaway-White for his invaluable expertise on cavalry lore and horsemanship.

I want to thank my dear mother April Sebag-Montefiore, once a novelist herself, who came up with the name Silver Socks – and manages to be witty, wise and acute at the age of ninety.

Thanks above all to Santa who is wife, mother, novelist, friend, partner and consigliere on all matters – and to my children, daughter Lily and son Sasha, who make me laugh so much, and who, together, make up our ‘musketeers’.

This book is dedicated to Sasha.

Historical characters are marked with an asterisk

The Prisoners of Madyak-7

Benya Golden, writer, sentenced to 25 years

Jaba Leonadze, the Brigand-in-Power, Vor v Zakone , the Boss, a Georgian

Ramzan Ulibnush, ‘Smiley’, Chechen Criminal

‘Deathless’, Russian Criminal

Kuzma Prishchepa, ‘Speedy’, young Criminal, Don Cossack

Little Mametka, ‘Bette Davis’, Georgian Criminal

Dr Kapto, the ‘Baby Doctor’

Tonya (Antonina) Makarova, his nurse and assistant

Nyushka, ‘Bunny’, nurse

Yevgeny Melishko, ‘the General’, ex-prisoner

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Mogilchuk, NKVD officer, Head of the Special Unit

Captain Vladimir Ganakovich, Politruk , Political Officer

Captain Leonid Zhurko, officer

Sergeant Pantaleimon Churelko, ‘Panka’, Don Cossack, veteran of World War 1

Garanzha, ‘Spider’, Zaparozhian Cossack

Ismail Karimov, ‘Koshka’, ‘the Cat’, Uzbek

Major Ippolito Bacigalupe

Fabiana Bacigalupe, nurse, his wife

Cesare Malamore, Consul (Colonel) of Blackshirts (Voluntary Militia for National Security)

Major Count Scipione di Montefalcone, Savoy cavalry officer

Konstantin Mandryka, Chief of Schuma auxiliary police (Schutzmannschaft: ‘protection team’)

Bronislav Kaminsky,* deputy to Mandryka, Chief of Schuma, later commander of the SS Sturmbrigade Kaminsky (Russian National Liberation Army), Waffen-SS Brigadeführer, Iron Cross

SS Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger,* convicted rapist/murderer, commander of the Nazi penal battalion known as the ‘Poachers’ Brigade’ and the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger, later Oberführer, Iron Cross

Josef Stalin,* Supreme Commander, Chairman of the State Defence Committee, Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, People’s Commissar of Defence, General Secretary of the Communist Party, ‘the Supremo’, ‘the Instantsiya’

Hercules Satinov, Soviet leader, member of the State Defence Committee, colonel general

Lavrenti Beria,* head of NKVD Security Organs, member of the State Defence Committee, Commissar-General of State Security

Svetlana Stalina,* daughter of the Leader, schoolgirl

Vasily Stalin,* son of the Leader, colonel in the air force, later general

Lev Shapiro, ‘the Lion’, journalist, screenwriter, war correspondent for Krasnaya Zvezda ( Red Star ) newspaper

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of the acclaimed novels of his Moscow Trilogy – Sashenka and One Night in Winter , which won the Paddy Power Political Novel of the Year Prize and was longlisted for the Orwell Prize: the novels are published in 27 languages. Montefiore is also the author of prize-winning bestselling history books now in 48 languages, including Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar , Jerusalem: The Biography and The Romanovs .

For more information see: www.simonsebagmontefiore.comor follow him on Twitter: @simonmontefiore.

The Moscow Trilogy

Sashenka

One Night in Winter

The Royal Rabbits of London (with Santa Montefiore)

Jerusalem: The Biography

Catherine the Great and Potemkin

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Young Stalin

Titans of History

The Romanovs: 1613–1918

‘The gripping final instalment of the Moscow Trilogy tells of a man wrongly imprisoned in the Gulags and his fight for redemption. Meticulously researched… 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. An homage to the author’s favourite Russian writers and 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.’

‘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.’

‘In this third volume of The Moscow Trilogy, the fate of combatants and civilians is often harsh. With his feel for vivid and immediate dramaand 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.’

‘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.’

‘I devoured Red Sky at Noon . A heartstopping, heartbreaking, technicolour epic. A grand homage to the Russian masters Babel & Grossman, echoes of Hemingway & Dostoevsky, and a propulsive delight that is entirely Montefiore’s own. Gripping storytelling allied with intimate, unsqueamish knowledge of Russian history – a special combination.’