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Catherine Merridale

Welcome to the website of Catherine Merridale, the award-winning writer and historian. Catherine is known for her acclaimed and pioneering books on Russian history. She is currently writing a series of historical crime novels. Moscow Underground, which introduces Investigator Anton Belkin, was published by Fontana in August 2025.

Catherine's non-fiction writing draws on twenty years of conversations and interviews in Russia and Ukraine, as well as on rare and original archival work. Her most recent books, both published by Allen Lane, include Lenin on the Train and Red Fortress: The Secret Heart of Russia's History, which won the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize and the Wolfson History Prize in 2014. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages and previous books have been shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and have also won the Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Prize. She is a Fellow of the British Academy.

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Moscow Underground

Moscow, April 1934. After years of upheaval and violence, life seems to be improving for the people of Stalin's capital. The city itself is changing fast; old landmarks have been swept away to make way for a dazzling future. There will be skyscrapers, bright steel and glass, but the flagship project is a new underground railway system, the Metro. To build this, the labourers must work like moles, reaching deep underground. While all eyes are fixed on the future, this digging brings the past to light. Some people find old Tsarist coins, one group finds old champagne. But there is one discovery for which someone will kill.

Anton Belkin is an Investigator at Moscow's newly reformed Procuracy. When an academic, a medievalist who was working with one of the Metro teams, is found murdered in a ruined mansion, he wants to stay clear of the case. But loyalties from his own past have left him with no choice.

Introducing Moscow Underground, a gripping novel of life, death and politics set on the brink of Stalin’s great purges, for fans of C.J. Sansom, Martin Cruz Smith and Robert Harris.

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