Murder in the Gulag

'Murder in the Gulag is brilliant journalistic writing: punchy, eloquent, page-turning and factual. It's a powerful reminder of what an extraordinary man Navalny was' - Roland Oliphant, Telegraph

The gripping sequel to the bestselling Killer in the Kremlin

2:19pm, Moscow time, 16 February 2024. The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District announces that Alexei Navalny is dead. The news sends shockwaves around the world.

In Murder in the Gulag, award-winning journalist John Sweeney goes behind the headlines to reveal what really happened to the Russian opposition leader in the freezing Polar Wolf penal colony in a remote part of Siberia. The book is less a whodunnit - Russian President Vladimir Putin's machinery of repression killed Navalny - than a howdunnit.

The narrative relates Navalny's extraordinary life story in technicolour detail, from his childhood summers spent with his grandparents in the shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine to his untimely death at the age of 47, cut down in his prime.

This is a warts-and-all portrayal of a highly charismatic but controversial figure who flirted with far-right Russian nationalists before course-correcting, told by an intrepid journalist, based in London and Kyiv, who knew Navalny personally.

Murder in the Gulag contains a warning. Navalny made a fatal misjudgement in returning to Russia after his poisoning by Novichok in 2020, betting that Vladimir Putin wouldn't kill him. But as Putin has gained in strength, with the death of Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and the fortunes of war slowly turning in Russia's favour, Navalny lost that bet. Sweeney argues that if the West fails to stand up more forcefully to Putin, we are in danger not just of betraying Ukraine but our own security too.

Murder in the Gulag is brilliant journalistic writing: punchy, eloquent, page-turning and factual. It's a powerful reminder of what an extraordinary man Navalny was. -- Roland Oliphant, Telegraph
[a] forensic and compelling account -- RTÉ Guide
[Sweeney] has done a valuable service with this lively page-turner. He is keeping Navalny's name alive and has shown that, despite all that Putin has done to corrupt society, there is a core of decency in Russia. -- Victor Sebestyen, The Times
Passionate . . . Sweeney not only gives a detailed backstory to this flawed hero, but also provides an insight into Putin's fears and the lengths he will go to to silence all opposition: something that too many Western observers are still reluctant to understand. -- Ksenia Samotiy, Irish Independent
Murder in the Gulag is brilliant journalistic writing: punchy, eloquent, page-turning and factual. It's a powerful reminder of what an extraordinary man Navalny was. -- Roland Oliphant, Telegraph

John Sweeney is a writer and journalist who has challenged dictators, despots, cult leaders, con artists and crooked businessmen for almost half a century. As a reporter, first for the Observer and then for the BBC, he has covered wars in around 100 countries and has been undercover in the danger zones of Chechnya, North Korea and Zimbabwe. The author of 16 books, including the Sunday Times bestseller Killer in the Kremlin, he has challenged both Donald Trump and Vladamir Putin face-to-face. He regularly appears on Good Morning Britain to report on life in Kyiv, where he has lived on and off since the Russian invasion.

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