TITLE - THE OUTFIT
WRITTEN BY - DAVID TALLERMAN
PUBLISHED BY - REBELLION
PUBLICATION DATE - 1ST MARCH 2022
Joseph Djugashvili - soon to be known to history as Joseph Stalin - plans to pull off the biggest bank robbery ever to aid Lenin’s revolution in David Tallerman’s “The Outfit”, a glorious romp of a novel which also features Lenin and a motley band of revolutionaries in a crazy heist story set in revolutionary Russia. This is the true story of The Outfit - think Ocean’s Eleven meets Dr. Zhivago - and how they carried out one of the most daring and brutal bank raids in history.
I absolutely loved this book. The narrative is brisk and the action scenes are vivid and dynamic. Tallerman writes well, making the story a joy to read; it may be a short book but it has great depth, with the genesis of the revolution set against the omnipresent threat of the Tsarist secret police like a shadow over everyday Russian life. Not a word is wasted by Tallerman as he depicts the days leading up to the robbery, the heist itself and its aftermath.
The characters are superbly realised. David Tallerman skilfully paints the calculating Stalin as someone who is at least an antihero, because it would be difficult to make a legitimate hero out of him, and yet we find ourselves cautiously rooting for him, even as his “future self” comes ever more to the fore. His crazy associate Kamo, leader of the Outfit, has some wickedly funny passages devoted to him, and his zealous desire for immediate action contrasts with the more cautious Stalin’s. However, events conspire to completely alter their relationship and the mechanics of the heist as Stalin makes a deal with the Devil.
At turns laugh out loud funny and shockingly serious, “The Outfit” is a supremely enjoyable, well-written tale made even more irresistible due to it being true, and I devoured it in one sitting.
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