Paul Clark

The Second Ruslan Shanidza Novel

“Few novels start as savagely and alarmingly as this. Out of rain, darkness, the gunshots of a mysterious ambush which leave a man drowning in his blood at the side of the road, there emerges – slowly and tantalisingly – the story of a man who is trying to stop a war. The place is the northern Caucasus; the time the murderous period of chaos left by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the contest of small, fanatical nationalities to establish their own independent states. Paul Clark understands all too well the fires of tribal loyalty, political rivalry and traditional lust to take up the weapons that litter the region. Events in his mythical ‘Ksordia-Akhtaria’ are not only a guide to the recent past (Chechnya, South Ossetia) but – unhappily – to the bloodshed and intrigue of the likely future.”

Neal Ascherson, author of Black Sea and The Polish August