To anyone who has seen the recent film on the death of Stalin, the character of Lavrenty Beria, played by Simon Russell Beale, may now be familiar. Though the film was a comedy (of sorts), there was nothing funny about the real Beria. A sadistic murderer, he rose steadily in the ranks of the Soviet secret police, first in his native Georgia, and later promoted by Stalin to head up the nation-wide force. Imagine if Beria had recorded all his crimes, including the very personal ones against young girls, in a private diary. That is not the premise of this book, which is a fictional account of how three adventurers come up with a plan to fake Beria's diaries to make money. A decade after The Beria Papers was published, the Hitler Diaries appeared and one is forced to wonder if the forger in that case was inspired by this one. As I have taken an interest recently in Soviet and Russian forgeries, I was interested to read this novel, and found it quite appealing, and as regards Beria, well-informed. ( )

An exciting fictional account of the diaries of Lavrenti Beria who was head of the Soviet secret police as well as being a sadistic mass murderer.
When published there is disquiet from various factions who didn't believe the diaries are genuine or are feared that things best known to certain people get out.
Great read.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Endeavour via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review. ( )

When the memoirs of Soviet secret police head Lavrenti Beria surface, everyone, from the American publisher that pays for them to the CIA and the KGB, want to know if they are authentic. Well researched page turner. ( )