This book moves fast but does not feel rushed. Note the page number of the above quote: 35. “My men say there are no eggs in Leningrad, but I believe there is everything in Leningrad, even now, and I just need the right fellows to find it. They are ordered by a colonel to find a dozen eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake: He is arrested for looting and thrown in a cell with Kolya, a charismatic deserter, until the two of them get a reprieve. One night, a dead German paratrooper lands near his apartment and he investigates the corpse with a few friends. At the outset, Lev Beniov is starving in Leningrad as the Germans bomb the city. When you get to the story proper, you’ll forgive the clumsy framing device. Gramps is gonna tell you ’bout the war.” (That’s sarcasm. The first few pages are tired, because they’re the old: “Sit down, Sonny-boy. To form an opinion of this book, you must read the first two chapters (at least). Much of the humor is dark, a little twisted, which is what you’d expect from a book set during a war. City of Thieves is simultaneously funny and sad, which is a hard balance to strike without becoming glib or irreverent. First to read and last to blog: a neat summation of how I run things around here. I stumbled over City of Thieves when it came out and was early on the bandwagon.
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