The Wizard of the Kremlin

In the Shadow of the Kremlin offers the reader a magnificent meditation on power in which we cross paths with Limonov and Kasparov, business men, models, and all of the regime's symbols. He was known as the Kremlin's Sorcerer. The enigmatic Vadim Baranov was a TV producer before becoming political advisor to Putin aka "The Czar." After his resignation from this position, legends about him multiply, without anyone being able to distinguish truth from fiction. Until one night, he tells his story to the narrator of this book... This story immerses us at the heart of Russian power, where sycophants and oligarchs have been engaging in open warfare, and where Vadim, now the regime's main spin doctor, turns an entire country into an avant-garde political stage. Yet Vadim is not as ambitious as the others. Entangled in the increasingly dark secret workings of the regime he has contributed to build, he will do anything to get out, guided by the memory of his grand-father, an eccentric aristocrat who survived the Revolution, and the mesmerizing, merciless Ksenia, whom he has fallen in love with.