Anna Politkovskaya was a correspondent for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and was an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and its policies in Chechnya. The definition of a hero in many people’s eyes is a person who is admired for courage or noble qualities.  Anna was more than a hero.  She was the voice of the Russian people…the suppressed, the murdered, the victimized.  She was extremely brave to speak out for the atrocities done to the people in Chechnya and other parts of Russia. She was murdered in her apartment in 2006.

This book is written in Anna’s words in the format of news stories and investigative reports she had done over several years.  She is one of many Russian journalists who have been murdered under Vladimir Putin’s regime and the judicial process for these murders, promised by Putin, is slow and lacking in conviction.

This is a very eye-opening book for those who do not know the details of what has been going in Russia for the last several years. It is a dangerous and many times fatal job to be a journalist in Russia and I commend those journalists who take the risk for the good of the Russian people. They will have their hands full now that President Putin has announced that he will seek a third non-consecutive term in the 2012 presidential elections.

Update: More information about Anna’s unsolved murder can be found at Committee to Protect Journalists.

Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House Publishing for giving me the opportunity to review this book.