Black Sun Synopsis
For fans of Red Sparrow and Child 44 comes a chilling and cinematic thriller set in 1961 in one of the most secretive locations in Soviet history. Ten days before the test of largest nuclear device in history, a KGB officer must investigate the murder of one of the architects of the bomb, and unravel a conspiracy that could set the world on fire.
It is the dawn of the 1960s. In order to investigate the gruesome death of a brilliant young physicist, KGB officer Major Alexander Vasin must leave Moscow for Arzamas-16, a top-secret research city that does not appear on any map. There he comes up against the brightest, most cutthroat brain trust in Russia who, on the orders of Nikita Khrushchev himself, are building a nuclear weapon with 3,800 times the destructive potential of the Hiroshima bomb. RDS-220 is a project of such vital national importance that, unlike everyone else in the Soviet Union, the scientists of Arzamas-16 are free to think and act, live and love as they wish.as long as they complete the project and prove to their capitalist enemies that the USSR now commands the heights of nuclear supremacy. With intricately plotted machinations, secrets and surveillance, corrupt politicos and puppet masters in the Politburo, and one devastating weapon, Owen Matthews has crafted a timely, terrific, and fast-paced thriller set at the height-and in the heart-of Soviet power.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780385543408 |
| Publication date: |
23rd July 2019 |
| Author: |
Owen Matthews |
| Publisher: |
Doubleday |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
305 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Espionage and spy thriller
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Owen Matthews Press Reviews
Based on real events . . . this story is set in a secret Soviet city in 1961. Featuring murder and betrayals, and a flawed but principled KGB man as its hero, it unfolds in the aftermath of Stalinism, amid the scars left by the purges, denunciations and Great Patriotic War. The author, a former Moscow correspondent, knows his terrain inside out. - THE ECONOMIST 'Books of the Year'
Atmospheric . . . his evocation of the landscape and times is sharp, and the insights into the horrors of the Communist past chastening . . . a powerful and gripping piece of writing. -- Maxim Jakubowski - CRIME TIME
A thoroughly dark and disturbing thriller. -- Jon Wise - SPORT
A rattlingly good yarn . . . Matthews has the uncanny ability to transport the reader back in time to the Soviet Union of 1961 . . . a debut novel which deserves a wide readership. -- Trevor Royle - THE HERALD
Brilliantly plotted and all the more satisfying because it is based on a true story . . . Something else, too: you get it that the Soviet Union in the sixties was a mess with all the wrong people holding the levers of power. And yet, inside the machine, there were humans too: sometimes noble, often seriously brilliant. Reading Black Sun is like stepping into a time machine and setting the dial for Soviet Russia, 1961. -- JOHN SWEENEY The most exciting thriller or mystery story debut this year . . . a cold war whodunnit . . . an absolutely gripping novel by one who knows Russia well and evokes a horrifyingly convincing Soviet Union. -- A. N. Wilson - THE TABLET 'Books of the Year'
This thrilling and suspenseful and original thriller of murder and power is a compelling voyage into the darkest secret city of the soviet nuclear project by an expert on all of Russian life. -- SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE Enthralling . . . Black Sun propels Matthews straight into the first division of thriller writers. -- Adam LeBor - FINANCIAL TIMES
A stunning debut. Matthews writes enviably well and knows Soviet Russia inside-out. Fantastic. -- CHARLES CUMMING Fact and fiction combine to keep the pages turning in this impressive debut thriller. -- Antonia Senior - THE TIMES 'Best Historical Fiction of the Year'
One of the best thrillers of recent years . . . a glorious book, a tour-de-force. It drips with authenticity from every page . . . a page-turning, thumping good read. -- DAVID YOUNG, bestselling author of Stasi Child An outstanding first novel . . . Matthews writes superbly. - SUNDAY TIMES 'Crime Book of the Month'
There are some authors who have gone out into the world to observe the good, the bad and the ugly. Owen Matthews is such a novelist. Black Sun is fascinating and has fearsome authenticity. -- FREDERICK FORSYTH A stunning debut thriller . . . ferocious, authentic and utterly terrifying . . . absolutely riveting. -- Geoffrey Wansell - DAILY MAIL
About Owen Matthews
OWEN MATTHEWS worked as a war correspondent in Bosnia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Iraq and Ukraine and was Newsweek magazine's bureau chief in Moscow from 2006 until 2016. He has written several works of non-fiction including the critically-acclaimed Stalin's Children and An Impeccable Spy. Black Sun is his first novel. He lives in Moscow and Oxford.
More About Owen Matthews
