International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award

Present-day Russia is the setting for the stunning new novel from Robert Harris, author of the number one bestsellers Fatherland and Enigma. Archangel tells the story of four days in the life of Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian, who is in Moscow to attend a conference on the newly opened Soviet archives. One night Kelso is visited in his hotel room by an old NKVD officer, a former bodyguard of the secret police chief, Lavrenty Beria. The old man claims to have been at Stalin's dacha on the night Stalin had his fatal stroke, and to have helped Beria steal the dictator's private papers, among them a notebook. Kelso decides to use his last morning in Moscow to check out the old man's story. But what starts as the idle enquiry in the Lenin Library soon turns into a murderous chase across night-time Moscow and up to northern Russia - to the vast forests near the White Sea port of Archangel, where the final secret of Josef Stalin has been hidden for almost half a century. Archangel combines the imaginative sweep and dark suspense of Fatherland with the meticulous historical detail of Enigma. The result is Robert Harris's most compelling novel yet.
Robert Harris, 41, was a reporter on the BBC's Panorama and Newsnight programmes before becomming Political Editor of the Observer in 1987, and then a columnist on the Sunday Times. His five non-fiction books include Selling Hitler (1986), an account of the forging of Hitlers' diaries. Fatherland (1992) was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel prize. His novels have sold six million copies worldwide and have been translated into 30 languages. He lives in Berkshire with his wife, Gill Hornby, and their three young children.

Archangel by Robert Harris Nominated by:

Archangel by
Robert Harris

Nominated by: