In 1941, the German Army has commenced its ill-fated invasion of Russia. They were stunningly ill-equipped and ill-prepared for the reality of the Russian landscape and weather, and when the medical team comes across Yasnaya Polyana – the former grand estate of Count Leo Tolstoy, it seems a gift. For surgeon Paul Bauer, it is a perfect place to establish a field hospital, and he is a little awestruck to be walking where the author of War and Peace once lived and wrote that great novel. What Paul and his colleagues hadn’t counted on is the determined and rebellious caretaker of the estate, Katerina Trubetzkaya; she is venomous and aloof, but she loves Tolstoy, as does Paul, and a tentative friendship develops between them.

As the war rages on and the casualties mount, the commanding officer Metz becomes more erratic, and the other men begin to crumple under the weather, the stress and the horrors of battlefield surgery. Readers be warned that these scenes are graphic and detailed.

The novel is engrossing as the team unravels and Paul uses his skills to address a medical emergency in the village. However, in the middle of the book there is a leap into the future, with letters written in 1969 which tell the reader the outcome of the book. This is strange as it effectively makes the second half of the book redundant and so I struggled with the story as there are no more surprises.

Reviewed by Lesley West