**Shortlisted for the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize** A SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF
2022 The Times Historical Fiction Book of the Month The truth must come out. In 1963
in a Siberian gulag former nuclear specialist Valery Kolkhanov has mastered what it takes to
survive: the right connections to the guards for access to food and cigarettes the right pair
of warm boots to avoid frostbite and the right attitude toward the small pleasures of life.
But on one ordinary day all that changes: Valery's university mentor steps in and sweeps
Valery from the frozen prison camp to a mysterious unnamed town hidden within a forest so
damaged it looks like the trees have rusted from within. Here Valery is Dr. Kolkhanov once
more and he's expected to serve out his prison term studying the effect of radiation on local
animals. But as Valery begins his work he is struck by the questions his research raises: what
exactly is being hidden from the thousands who live in the town? And if he keeps looking for
answers will he live to serve out his sentence? Based on real events in a surreal Soviet
city and told with bestselling author Natasha Pulley's inimitable style The Half Life of
Valery K is a sweeping historical adventure.
