1919, Siberia.

Deep in the unforgiving landscape a town lies under military rule, awaiting the remorseless assault of Bolsheviks along the Trans-Siberian railway. One night a stranger, Samarin, appears from the woods with a tale of escape from an Arctic prison, insisting a cannibal is on his trail. Only Anna, a beautiful young widow, trusts his story. When a local shaman is found dead, suspicion and terror engulf the isolated community, which harbours a secret of its own . . .

Prizes

Winner of RSL Ondaatje Prize 2006 (UK),Winner of Saltire Society Scottish Fiction Book of the Year 2005 (UK),Long-listed for The Man Booker Prize 2005 (UK)

A quite extraordinary novel . . . the language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. And what a narrative! What a story! -- PHILIP PULLMAN
Magnificent and beautifully written . . . such a truly Russian novel, with its huge horizons, it is an exceptional event in English literature -- ANTONY BEEVOR
Spellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most contemporary fiction you'll ever read . . . A truly great read -- Irvine Welsh * * Guardian * *
Has the strangeness and clarity of a dream. This is historical fiction that transcends the genre - as intense as a thriller, imagined on an epic scale * * The Times * *
The best and most original book that I have read for years -- LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES
A strikingly unusual and ambitious novel . . . Violence and sensuality commingle in a tense, complex thriller with the sweep and flavour of Russia * * Sunday Telegraph * *
This remarkable and ambitious book succeeds as a savagely colourful, always astonishing entertainment of elegant and bold storytelling -- Simon Sebag Montefiore * * Evening Standard * *
A powerfully realised novel . . . supremely well plotted * * Observer * *
Once in a while a novel comes along that is so startlingly original as to defy categorisation . . . This is powerful storytelling indeed * * Mail on Sunday * *
Dazzling . . . Meek has created a unique story, distinctively Russian * * Spectator * *

James Meek is the author of six novels including The People's Act of Love which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Scottish Arts Council Award. It has been published in more than thirty countries. Meek's latest novel The Heart Broke In was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and he has also written two collections of short stories and a book of non-fiction, Private Island, which won the 2015 Orwell Prize. He is a Contributing Editor to the London Review of Books and writes regularly for the Guardian and New York Times. He lives in London.