Book description
Four months into the siege of Leningrad, the city is starving.
Seventeen-year-old Lev fears for his life when he is arrested for
looting the body of a dead German paratrooper, while his charismatic
cellmate, Kolya, a handsome young soldier arrested for desertion,
seems bizarrely unafraid.
Dawn brings, instead of an execution squad, an impossible challenge.
Lev and Kolya can find a dozen eggs for an NKVD colonel to use for his
daughter's wedding cake, and live. Or fail, and die.
In the depths of the coldest winter in history, through a city cut
off from all supplies and suffering appalling deprivation, man and boy
embark on an absurd hunt. Their search will take them through
desolate, lawles Leningrad and the devastated countryside surrounding
it, in the captivating journey of two men trying to survive against
desperate odds.
