Kirjahaku

A powerful and frightening account - based on fresh research and eye-witness accounts - of the great Terror that swept France after the Revolution of 1789. From early 1793 to the summer of 1794, the young French Republic was subject to a reign of institutionalised terror which grew ever more bloodthirsty and paranoid in its actions. Personified by Robespierre and the 'Angel of Death', Saint-Just, the Terror convulsed and very nearly ruined France - until they too met their fate under the guillotine. That extraordinary period - in many ways the precursor of Stalin's Great Terror of the 1930s - is vividly re-created by Graeme Fife. He has used contemporary documents, eye-witness accounts, and reports from the dreaded Committee of Public Safety, to show the atmosphere of fear, suspicion and betrayal that gripped France. But amidst the horror there was also great heroism and pathos - the author includes heartbreaking letters written by those awaiting execution.

‘Memory’s Ransom’ draws the reader into a world of intrigue and astonishing reversals of fortune populated by a cast of compellingly memorable men and women. Opening with an assassination, the story begins with a mysterious encounter on a dark, rainswept roadside in war-torn Italy and concludes with a shattering incident on a beach in Portugal. This remarkable novel is a haunting story of secrets, love, deep friendship, loss and longing, set against the background of Imperial Vienna reduced by defeat to the size and poverty of a small parish; the rise of the Nazis, the terrors of ‘Kristallnacht’; a breath-taking escape from occupied Europe; and of the way memory clings relentlessly to us.