The Last Storm of War

A book about events of wartime, complex fates, and the dangerous work of little-known heroes from the “Beria’s special forces” group. In 1945, when the war is nearing its end, the team of Lieutenant Colonel Maxim Shelestov discovers among the prisoners of war a naval officer, Berthold Hofer, involved in the mining of the Crimean coastline. During interrogation, Hofer admits that in Crimea there is a group of saboteurs ready to blow up Soviet facilities. Shelestov’s team goes to the site to prevent the threat. But soon it becomes clear that the German command did not trust Hofer, and part of his work was a diversion. Maxim has only a few hours left to learn the exact location and time of the sabotage. This series of books shows that in the NKVD under Lavrenty Beria’s leadership they knew how to trust people—just as the commissar himself did. Shelestov’s story resembles the real story of an Abwehr agent, a former staff-captain of the Tsarist army, Nelidov, which makes Maxim Shelestov’s adventures and those of his team even more plausible. The total circulation of A. Tamonikov’s books exceeds 10 million copies.