THE COMMUNIST'S SECRET

A Russian woman struggles with conflicting allegiances during World War II in Parry’s second book of the Leningrad Trilogy.

In 1941 Leningrad, Katya Karavayeva, a former radio installer, finds herself in dire straits because “some senior Party official had taken the word of an envious liar,” resulting in her losing her Party membership and her job. Desperate to get herself back into the Party’s good graces, she leaves her 15-year-old daughter, Yelena, with her mother-in-law, Sofya, to join the Volunteer Corps; she’s soon helping to build antitank trenches near the town of Luga to thwart the invading German army. When her group finds itself under attack, Katya manages to escape with fellow comradeSvet Grigorova, a teenager with her own reasons for joining the Corps. Katya must rely on Svet’s survival skills to keep them alive as they stay hidden in the woods, and she learns much about herself in the process. After many months, Katya returns to her German-occupied hometown of Staraya Russa and begins to rebuild her life. There, Katya thinks about her choices that have led her into her current situation. She wants to atone for betraying her husband, who was arrested and imprisoned after she made a comment about his lack of patriotic devotion; she also dreams of returning to her daughter. After she joins the Soviet partisans, she gains a new perspective on the war—and on herself. Over the course of this follow-up to Lost Souls of Leningrad (2022), Parry richly develops her characters and crafts a compelling tale of second chances that will captivate readers; indeed, it grabs the reader’s attention with a tension-filled narrative right from the start. Her keen eye for detail, and her clear ability to infuse real-life history into her story, demonstrates her commitment and discipline when it comes to historical fiction. Newcomers will find that this series installment stands perfectly well on its own; however, they’ll surely be eager to read the next and final installment.

A thoroughly researched wartime tale of courage that highlights complexities of love and war.