Boktips: Tjuvarnas stad av David Benioff

City of Thieves by David Benioff held me in a firm grip from the first page to the last. The fact that the book was read in a cold hotel room in the middle of the Ukrainian winter did not detract from the feeling, but it is certainly just as good to read during our cold Swedish winter!

Leningrad is under siege

It is the winter of 1942 and Leningrad is under German siege. It is brutally cold and for the inhabitants every day is a struggle to survive the cold, hunger, bombing and crime. 17-year-old Lev is caught stealing from a German paratrooper and placed in a cell with deserter Kolja. The two boys await an inevitable execution, but instead are given a very strange assignment. The Russian colonel needs twelve eggs for his daughter's wedding cake and promises both men their lives if they can get the eggs.

We then follow an unlikely egg hunt through the lawless streets of Leningrad, past enemy lines and into the devastated countryside. Here we meet cannibals, field brothels and an infant sniper from Arkhangelsk. This book is like no other, read it!