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  • Published: 13 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781473535664
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

Red Sky at Noon




1942, and the battle for Stalingrad is just beginning: this is historical fiction at its finest and most epic by Simon Sebag Montefiore, global bestselling author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Jerusalem and The Romanovs.

‘An epic adventure story set against the most awful war in history. Ridiculously good’ Dan Snow

'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 enrols in 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.

Praise for Red Sky at Noon
'Red Sky at Noon is an epic adventure story set against the backdrop of the most awful war in human history. The master historian shape-shifting into the brilliant novelist. Ridiculously good’. Dan Snow'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 the Month, The Times

'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
'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.' - AD Miller, author of Snowdrops
'The gripping final instalment of the Moscow Trilogy tells of a man wrongly imprisoned in the Gulags and his fight for redemption. Love in dark times, 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.' - Observer

  • Published: 13 July 2017
  • ISBN: 9781473535664
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416

About the author

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of the acclaimed novels of his Moscow Trilogy – Sashenka, Red Sky at Noon 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.com or follow him on Twitter: @simonmontefiore.

Also by Simon Sebag Montefiore

See all

Praise for Red Sky at Noon

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

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

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.

AD Miller, author of Snowdrops

This gripping 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.

Observer

A GRIPPING tale ... Montefiore is BRILLIANT at depicting the BROODING MENACE ... the [penal battalions] are given increasingly risky missions, it is Benya's journey on horseback that we follow behind enemy lines in the grasslands of southern Russia ... An EPIC tale ... The language is arresting ... It's beautifully done: a WESTERN ON THE EASTERN FRONT.

Daily Telegraph

DISPATCHES FROM THE DAYS OF BLOOD AND THUNDER ... There are atrocities on all sides and a smidgen of love as Benya falls for a brave Italian nurse. A subplot follows the ill-starred affair between Stalin's daughter and a Jewish writer. But Benya's struggle to keep his humanity is the memorable spine of the book.

Best of Summer reading, The Times

Exhilarated and terrified ... Golden is plunged into a world where violent death could arrive at any moment and any pleasures that present themselves (an unexpected affair with an Italian nurse, for example) must be seized immediately. Sebag Montefiore PAINTS HIS VERBAL PICTURES of the WAR IN BOLD PRIMARY COLOURS ... SHEER ENERGY OF STORYTELLING AND GRAND SWEEP OF NARRATIVE.

Sunday Times

Tolstoyan

The Jewish Chronicle

IT'S LONESOME DOVE MEETS STALINGRAD. A band of outlaws riding & fighting for their lives on sweeping plains - but these bandits are not battling tribes in the Wild West, they are on the grasslands of south Russia at war with Nazi Germany and its ally, the Italians. Our hero is not a Texas Ranger but a Jewish writer named Benya Golden. Montefiore has brought his understand of Russian history to life here with great gusto traversing Gulags, battlefields and Kremlin but Golden is a lover not a fighter...

Leila McKinnon, Womens Weekly Australia

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s skill with imagery is such that he immerses his reader in an utterly ethereal landscape … Montefiore can effortlessly meld beauty and battle

TLS

For the sheer pleasure of being swept away in an epic tale of love and war by a master storyteller, Red Sky At Noon by Simon Sebag Montefiore had me enthralled from beginning to end. This is the final part of his Moscow trilogy – a series of compelling historical novels in the great tradition of Scott, Thackeray and Tolstoy.

Billy Kay, Book of the Year, Sunday Herald (Scotland)

A gripping historical novel with a panoramic sweep

The Mail on Sunday