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 . . .

"Spellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most contemporary fiction you'll ever read . . . A truly great read" - * 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 *

"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" - * 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 *