“A dazzling study of mental anguish and moral dilemma” Author Nick Taussig picks his essential crime fiction reads… The Big Issue, 7 August 2013 1. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Following the nihilistic student Raskolnikov, this is a dazzling study of mental anguish and moral dilemma. 2. The Godfather, Mario Puzo We’ve all seen …
Tag archives: Putin
Independent – Five-minute memoir: Nick Taussig recalls a particularly trying trip across Russia
‘Mother Russia’ had long intrigued the author, but a journey across the country almost changed his mind… The Independent, 3 August 2013 A lifelong student of Russian literature – no one wrestles with the shadow self quite like a Russian novelist – it was perhaps inevitable that I would write a novel profoundly Russian in …
4 stars in The Sun for “The Distinguished Assassin”
Marcel Berlins reviews “The Distinguished Assassin” in The Times
“The Distinguished Assassin is Professor Aleksei Klebnikov, banished to a Gulag labour camp in 1949 on trumped-up charges. Set free in 1952, he becomes a hitman for a gangster, assigned to murder six brutal, highly placed Communist officials. Klebnikov’s ultimate aim is to kill the man responsible for his captivity and who, he believes, seduced his …
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Listen to a short exclusive extract from “The Distinguished Assassin”
A short exclusive extract from “The Distinguished Assassin”, read by the author
Putin, a modern day Stalin
Masha Gessen, the Russian journalist, wrote a very important book last year, published by Granta in the UK. The Man Without a Face is a devastating portrait of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a man who, when he took power of Russia in 2000, swiftly dismantled the young mechanisms of democracy put in place by his drunken predecessor Yeltsin …
Putin’s Third Term
It appears that Putin will be President once more, despite the protestations of the Russian people who cry not only foul play but also that they’ve had enough of Vladimir Vladimirovich – the leader who refuses to relinquish power in the vein of the many despots before him. Democracy in Russia is nothing but a …
Putin’s Dark Imperium
I’ve had a passion for Russian literature since I was a teenager. Its grand themes of murder and redemption were always going to hold more appeal to a troubled adolescent than the airs and graces of yet another Austen novel – I pray the British people tire of her soon! – and after reading too …
“The Distinguished Assassin”, First Extract
1st April ‘49 First, they frisk him down, then they start to go through his apartment, this shoddy home of Aleksei Nikolayevich Klebnikov, with its cracked plaster, which criss-crosses the walls; its peeling wallpaper, which droops from the ceiling; its old pipes, which cough and splutter; its wood furniture, which barely holds together; its paintings, …
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