A former soldier finds a man on the brink of death pulling a sled near a small Ukrainian town - and in the sled, a gruesome discovery. Luka Mikhailovich lives with his wife and three children in the small Ukrainian town of Vyriv. The year is 1931, and Luka's family lives under the shadow of Stalin's forced collectivization of goods and property. While the Red Army has not yet come to Vyriv, Luka and his sons, Viktor and Petro, find a man on the outskirts of the village and fear that he is the first of Stalin's men. The man, however, starved and near death, pulls a sled with the dead bodies of two young children on it. Luka takes the man back to the village, where his presence - and the presence of the two dead children - whips the fearful folk into a furor. Led by Luka's brother-in-law, Dimitri, the villagers pull the man from Luka's house and hang him in the town square, believing that he murdered the children. During the commotion, Dimitri's daughter Dariya disappears. Luka, Dimitri, Viktor, and Petro set out to find the missing girl by following her tracks, but quickly come upon another set of tracks - the footsteps of a man. On the trail of the pair, Dimitri is shot down by a sniper, and Luka quickly realizes that the child thief is playing a game with them, with Dariya as bait. Luka and his sons come across another young girl, Aleksandra, whose village was sacked by the Red Army come to enforce collectivization. With Aleksandra in tow, the men continue after Dariya, only to have Luka fall into the clutches of the Soviet soldiers. Luka is forced to find a way to escape, find Dariya, and return to his own village before his worst fears are realized - the death of his niece and the arrival of the Red Army in Vyriv.
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Best part of story, including ending:
I enjoy many aspects of history, including Russian history - combined with the harsh but beautiful winter setting of Ukraine, the fantastic characters, and the mystery-turned cat-and-mouse game, this is a book I found hard to put down.
Best scene in story:
I enjoyed the scene where Luka sneaks up on a small shepherd's cottage in order to hopefully find the child thief and Dariya both, only to find something that changes the tone and direction of the story.
Opinion about the main character:
Luka is a man caught in a difficult position. While he has lived in Vyriv for many years, and his wife is a native of the village, he is Russian, and will never be truly accepted. Yet he is the only one who stands up for the wounded man before the townspeople lynch him in the square, and he is the only one - besides Dimitri - who volunteers to go in search of Dariya.
