'A timely revelation.' BookLife

'Gripping.' Kirkus Reviews

'Will embrace even readers who held little prior familiarity with and interest in Soviet affairs.' Midwest Book Reviews

Part social commentary, part unputdownable tale, Going to Zossen is a relevant examination of complacency that makes for necessary reading in today's political climate.

The year is 1993. In a collapsing post-Soviet town, a former serviceman, Vasily Mikhailovich, accepts work as the director of a remote juvenile prison colony. Determined to bring order and empathy to a brutal system, he starts a programme of rehabilitation for the young boys. But he is soon thwarted by the corruption around him. As he watches the people nearby prosper through deceit and cruelty, he is compelled to make a choice: to uphold his principles or surrender them to save his family.