The People's Act Of Love (Canons)

Review\nA quite extraordinary novel . . . the language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. And what a narrative! What a story! -- PHILIP PULLMAN\nMagnificent and beautifully written . . . such a truly Russian novel, with its huge horizons, it is an exceptional event in English literature -- ANTONY BEEVOR\nSpellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most contemporary fiction you'll ever read . . . A truly great read -- Irvine Welsh ― Guardian\nHas 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\nThe best and most original book that I have read for years -- LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES\nA strikingly unusual and ambitious novel . . . Violence and sensuality commingle in a tense, complex thriller with the sweep and flavour of Russia ― Sunday Telegraph\nThis remarkable and ambitious book succeeds as a savagely colourful, always astonishing entertainment of elegant and bold storytelling -- Simon Sebag Montefiore ― Evening Standard\nA powerfully realised novel . . . supremely well plotted ― Observer\nOnce in a while a novel comes along that is so startlingly original as to defy categorisation . . . This is powerful storytelling indeed ― Mail on Sunday\nDazzling . . . Meek has created a unique story, distinctively Russian ― Spectator\n1919, Siberia.\nDeep 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 . . .