The Wizard of the Kremlin - Giuliano da Empoli

He was known as the Wizard of the Kremlin. The enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming political advisor to Putin. After he resigns from this position, legends about him multiply, without anyone being able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, he tells his story to the narrator of this book... Welcome to the heart of Russian power, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in openwarfare, and where Vadim, now the regime's main spin doctor, turns an entire country into anavant-garde political stage. Yet Vadim is not as ambitious as the others. Entangled in the increasingly dark secret workings of the regime he has contributed to build, he will do anything to get out, guided by the memory of his grandfather, an eccentric aristocrat who survived the Revolution, and the mesmerizing, merciless Ksenia, whom he has fallen in love with. From the war in Chechnya to the invasion of Ukraine, The Wizard of the Kremlin is a great novel on contemporary Russia, and a sobering meditation on power, which takes the reader behind the scenes of the Putin era.