Philps clearly wants The Red Hotel to do justice to those who served truth and mete out some punishment to those who failed it. The book’s structure somewhat hinders this ambition. It awkwardly jumps between past, present and future, and from one set of interpreters and journalists to another.

Philps...conveys Nadya’s story in stirring detail, both her improbable adventures before World War II and the ordeals she experienced in the Gulag after her arrest in 1948..

It is as strong a condemnation of Stalin's murder, insanity, paranoia and paralysing control, on a personal level, as readers might expect to find anywhere. There are also large question marks over the probity, integrity and basic honesty of many of the journalists Philps discusses.

A sizzling read full of bitchiness and high jinks. But it is also a deeply moral book, outlining a simple truth: that the press pack abroad often operates in a bubble and is deeply dependent on local translators and fixers. Philps... has an eye for detail.

Immaculately told.

Engaging and fast paced.

[A] multilayered story of wartime foreign journalists.