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City of Thieves
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City of Thieves (2008) (edit title/settings)

by David Benioff (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

As wise and funny as it is thrilling and original — the story of two young men on an impossible adventure.

A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won’t talk about it, but his grandfather... read more

Summary edit see section history

During WWII, the city of Leningrad, Russia is being held under siege by Germans. Choked off from all supplies of food and other necessities, the city people are living in desperation during the cold months of the Russian winter.

Lev, a Jewish adolescent, too young for the army and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

During WWII, the city of Leningrad, Russia is being held under siege by Germans. Choked off from all supplies of food and other necessities, the city people are living in desperation during the cold months of the Russian winter.

Lev, a Jewish adolescent, too young for the army and without his parents, finds himself struggling to survive in Leningrad. When he is caught looting a dead German officer he is arrested and thrown in a cell, to be executed by the next day. With him is a fellow Russian, Kolya, who has been arrested under the premise of deserting his rank.

However the pair is given another shot at freedom if they can complete a task that seems far from achievable. They must procure a dozen eggs within a week for a powerful colonel to use in his daughter's wedding cake. Their outlook is bleak as they set forth to find eggs in a city that hasn't seen food for months.

Starting within Leningrad’s borders the two begin to look for the kitchen staple that will save their lives. They soon begin to discover the horrible measures people have come to survive; children eating the pages of books, hunger-crazed citizens turning to cannibalism. It seems no one can assist them with their plight.

The two move outwards hoping to find better luck in the country side of Russia. The Germans have seized this area making travel difficult and dangerous. Most farms and towns have been raided and taken over. Lev and Kolya aren’t well enough prepared for the cold and find themselves starving. They happen across a group of rebellious partisans, mostly compiled of farmers- with the exception of Vika. She is an expert marksman, and a girl posing as a man so she can fight.

Lev and Kolya find themselves working with the partisans to help destroy important German units. One night they are found by an infantry of German soldiers and during the scuffle all of the partisans are killed but Lev, Kolya and Vika. They are pulled in as prisoners to the Germans, to work in the steel factories. Lev discovers he has feelings for Vika.

Lev and Kolya have two days to retrieve the eggs they had long forgotten about. With some luck Kolya convinces the German General into a chess match with Lev. If Lev wins the three will be granted their freedom from the Germans and twelve eggs, if he loses the three will be killed. Lev wins out and he and Kolya run back to Leningrad, parting ways with Vika to Lev’s dismay.

Tragically upon their entering the city Kolya is killed accidentally by a Russian soldier. Lev receives his liberty alone and lives in Leningrad till the end of the siege. Eventually he is reunited with Vika.

Characters edit see section history

  • Lev Abramovich Beniov: Lev is a Jewish teenager living alone in Leningrad with his peers. He feels insecure about himself sometimes, but is also a brave, streetsmart, and intelligent youth. The story is read from his perspective. Being a teenage boy his thoughts aren't always the purest, but he has good intentions and a kind heart.
  • Nikolai Alexandrovich Vlasov: Companion of Lev's, "Kolya" is a soldier charged with desertion.
  • Markov: One of the partisans in Vika's and Korsakov's group.
  • Olesya: A girl with pigtails, living with Nina, Lara and Galina, but who never speaks.
  • Lara: Half Spanish-Russian (though she looks Chechen) girl who lives with Nina and Galina, all who are reserved for the German invaders' pleasure.
  • Galina: One of two sisters that Lev and Kolya encounter on their circuitous trek to Mga. After realizing they were going the wrong way, they seek shelter from Nina and Galina. Young and brunette.
  • Nina: One of two sisters that Lev and Kolya encounter on their circuitous trek to Mga. After realizing they were going the wrong way, they seek shelter from Nina and Galina.
  • Vika: Vika is a young tom-boyish girl working with a group of partisans fighting Germans. She hides her identity by posing as a man. She learned to shoot from her father and is an incredible marksman. Very cynical most of the time, she has a rough exterior. She seems very guarded, but is also one of the braver characters.
  • Pavil: Ferret-faced young man friend of Sonya's
  • Timofei: Leningrad surgeon who occasionally sleeps at Sonya's home with other physicians and nurses not on shift at local hospital.
  • Vera Osipovna: A talented cellist who is Lev's neighbor at the Kirov
  • Sonya Ivanovna: Kolya's friend and occasional lover.
  • Korsakov: The leader of the partisan group; rough, smart and penetrating. He seems often suspicious of other characters but maintains a strong leader role to the other partisans.
  • General Abendroth: The intimidating and all-powerful German general who challenges Lev to a game of chess. He is the only German in the story the reader becomes really acquainted with. He fully encompasses the characteristics of Nazis as we think of them; prejudiced, rude, cruel and scary.
Show all 14 characters
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “There is a place beyond hunger, beyond fatigue, where time no longer seems to move and the body's misery no longer seems fully your own.”
    Lev Beniov
  • “Truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.”
    David Benioff
  • “The experience of terror does not make you braver. Perhaps, though, it is easier to hide your fear when you’re afraid all the time.”
    Lev Beniov
  • “That was the only way to talk. You couldn’t let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn’t admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.”
  • “The loneliest sound in the world is other people making love.”
    Lev Beniov
  • “Listen to me. I know you're afraid. You're right to be afraid. Only an idiot would be calm sitting in a house knowing the Einsatzgruppen are coming. But this is what you've been waiting for. This is the night. They're trying to burn down our city; they're trying to starve us to death. But we're like two of Piter's bricks. You can't burn a brick. You can't starve a brick.”
    Nikolai Alexandrovich Vlasov
  • “This is literature. We don't call it robbery; we call it homage.”
    Nikolai Alexandrovich Vlasov
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • “Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She’s beautiful; when you’re with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she’s been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.”
    Highlighted by 273 Kindle customers
  • June—contrary to popular belief, the experience of terror does not make you braver. Perhaps, though, it is easier to hide your fear when you’re afraid all the time.
    Highlighted by 120 Kindle customers
  • I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews, two of the gloomiest tribes in the world.
    Highlighted by 119 Kindle customers
  • “Those words you want to say right now? Don’t say them.” He smiled and cuffed my cheek with something close to real affection. “And that, my friend, is the secret to living a long life.”
    Highlighted by 113 Kindle customers
  • Heroes and fast sleepers, then, can switch off their thoughts when necessary. Cowards and insomniacs, my people, are plagued by babble on the brain.
    Highlighted by 112 Kindle customers
  • German corpses fell from the sky; cannibals sold sausage links made from ground human in the Haymarket; apartment blocs collapsed to the ground; dogs became bombs; frozen soldiers became signposts; a partisan with half a face stood swaying in the snow, staring sad-eyed at his killers. I had no food in my belly, no fat on my bones, and no energy to reflect on this parade of atrocities. I just kept moving, hoping to find another half slice of bread for myself and a dozen eggs for the colonel’s daughter.
    Highlighted by 107 Kindle customers
  • I’ve always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. I was born an insomniac and that’s the way I’ll die, wasting thousands of hours along the way longing for unconsciousness, longing for a rubber mallet to crack me in the head, not so hard, not hard enough to do any damage, just a good whack to put me down for the night.
    Highlighted by 101 Kindle customers
  • Kolya seemed fearless, but everyone has fear in them somewhere; fear is part of our inheritance. Aren’t we descended from timid little shrews who cowered in the shadows while the great beasts stomped past? Cannibals and Nazis didn’t make Kolya nervous, but the threat of embarrassment did—the possibility that a stranger might laugh at the lines he’d written.
    Highlighted by 97 Kindle customers
  • book—truth might be stranger than fiction, but it needs a better editor.
    Highlighted by 85 Kindle customers
  • I lay in the darkness listening to them, as the wind shook the windows in their frames and the last embers popped in the stove. The loneliest sound in the world is other people making love.
    Highlighted by 40 Kindle customers
Show all 17 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

  • Leningrad: Formerly known as Saint Petersburg, and called (though illegally) Piter by most of its residents. Besieged by Nazis, this is the site of most of the novel's events.
  • Kirov: At the beginning of the novel, Lev Beniov lives on the 5th floor of the Kirov Building in Leningrad.
  • The Crosses: Leningrad prison into which Lev is jailed for looting.
  • Haymarket: One of the busiest shopping areas of pre-Bolshevik Russia located in downtown Leningrad
  • Nevksy Propsekt: Leningrad's most famous street.
  • Mga: A peasant village where Lev and Kolya try to journey in order to find eggs.
  • Berezovka: The burned-down town in Nazi territory where Lev and Kolya mistakenly end up.
  • Novoye Koshikino: The village where the partisans try to attack the Germans.
  • Krasnogvardeysk: A German controlled town where Lev, Koya and Vika are taken as prisoners.

Organizations edit see section history

  • NKVD: The Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The secret police in Stalin's Soviet Union.
  • Einsatzgruppen: Nazi death squads, killers handpicked from the German army, SS, and Gestapo for hunting and executing targeted groups.

First Sentence edit see section history

My grandfather, the knife fighter, killed two Germans before he was eighteen.

Glossary edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in KCPL Discussion Kit (Aug2010). (community list)
This is book 10 of 78 in Zvonka's list. (community list)
This book is in 2010-2011 Iowa High School Battle of the Books. (authoritative list)
This is book 28 of 121 in Znanje - Knjiga dostupna svima. (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. David Benioff (Author)

Other Contributors:

  1. Ron Perlman (Reader)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Viking Press
Country: United States
Publication Date: 2008
ISBN: 0670018708
Page Count: 272

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PS3552.E54425 C58
  • Dewey: 813.54

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