Kyiv

'Liked this. Went someway to plugging the ginormous hole that Philip Kerr sad passing has left in my life' DERMOT O'LEARY

'A searing portrait of the Nazi elite as the war turns against them. Raw, shocking and meticulously researched' TIM SEBASTIAN

On Sunday 22nd June, 1941, at 03.05, three and a half million Axis troops burst into the Soviet Union along a 1,800 mile front to launch Operation Barbarossa. The southern thrust of the attack was aimed at the Caucuses and the oil fields beyond. Kyiv was the biggest city to stand in their way.

Within six weeks, the city was under siege. Surrounded by Panzers, bombed and shelled day and night, Soviet Commissar Nikita Krushchev was amongst the senior Soviet officials co-ordinating the defence. Amid his cadre of trusted personnel is British defector Bella Menzies, once with MI5, now with the NKVD.

With the fall of the city inevitable, the Soviets plan a bloody war of terror that will extort a higher toll on...