Outstanding, enormously enjoyable, exciting -- Philip Ziegler Daily Telegraph Held me gripped by every page and I was impatient at any interruption. Spellbinding, often frightening and sometimes funny -- Alec Guinness Daily Mail

Antony Beevor began his career as a professional officer in the 11th Hussars. He is the author of several books, including The Spanish Civil War, Crete and The Mystery of Olga Chekhova. With his wife, Artemis Cooper, he wrote Paris After the Liberation, but he is best known for his books Berlin and Stalingrad, the international No 1 bestseller, and winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, Wolfson Price and Hawthornden Prize. He lives in London and Kent. Artemis Cooper is the author of several books, including Cairo in the War 1939-1945 and Writing at the Kitchen Table. Her grandfather, Duff Cooper, was the first post-war British ambassador to Paris, and his private diaries and papers provide one of the unpublished sources for this book.