Book excerpt: Set in Ukraine, a terrifying novel of war, occupation and the totalitarian mind in action. 'Fascinating ... Blunden was in Russia during the war, and he was one of the correspondents who entered Kharkov ...The Time of the Assassins is history told from the dust's perspective [with] the truly nightmarish aspect of the experience of the survivors of Kharkov' New Yorker In the late fall of 1941 the Germans entered Kharkov, at that time capital of the Ukraine. Sixteen months later the Red Army drove them out - and a new terror was unleashed. A terrifying dissection of German and Russian psychology, this is the story of the city's inhabitants, man of whom were hanged. Others lived on with simple survival their only goal. Then, as the tide of war turned westward from Stalingrad, the Communist underground returned surreptitiously to Kharkov - and a new fear was abroad. Already distant artillery fire was heard - and new assassins were soon to come. Blunden was among the handful of foreign correspondents to return to Kharkov with the Russians. What he saw at first hand, plus his imaginative insight into the complex and desperate forces which had been at work during the German occupation, provided the genesis of THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINS.