The Forest Spirit in Uniform

A novel set during wartime, about complex fates and dangerous work of unknown heroes who are included in the assault team of “Beria’s special forces.” Summer 1944. Soviet troops launch an offensive operation codenamed “Bagration.” Without expecting such a powerful blow, the Germans are forced to evacuate their rear services in a hurry. In the Orsha area, the head of the local Gestapo office disappears—taking along a secret archive of the agent network. A group led by Maksim Shelestov is sent to search for documents of exceptional importance. One of its members, Boris Kogan, practically reaches the target when he suddenly runs into an enemy patrol. For a counterintelligence officer, that means certain death… It would have happened, if at the last moment one of the Germans hadn’t appeared suspiciously familiar to Kogan.

This series is good because it carries the right central idea: in the NKVD of Lavrenti Beria they knew how to believe people, because the very head of the agency knew how to believe. The story of Major Shelestov’s group is similar to the real story of a major Abwehr agent, a former штабс-captain of the tsarist army, Nelidov, who ended up at Lubyanka in September 1939. Against the backdrop of Nelidov’s story, Maxim Shelestov’s adventures and those of his comrades described in this novel seem even more plausible. (S. Kremlev) The total print run of A. Tamonikov’s books is over 10 million copies.