Set in a small and tight-knit community of honest criminals in a remote part of Russia, this is a tale of an extreme, exotic and violent boyhood. Told from the perspective of a boy gaining his education as a member of the Mafia-like Urkas in Transnistria, we get a glimpse inside the strict codes of honour of Siberia.

'Free Fall' is a brutal but engrossing memoir of the Second Chechen War, told through the eyes of a young Russian soldier. Nicolai Lilin was conscripted and then trained as a sniper in an unorthodox Russian Special Forces regiment called the Saboteurs.