Ten o’clock and the city of Tallinn is empty, in a pause between two occupying forces. This silent hour marks the break between four years of war and a new Soviet occupation that would last fifty years. In September 1944, the Germans fled Estonia, which they had occupied for three years, while the Soviet Union prepared to invade the small Baltic state once again. A few Estonians attempted to infiltrate this gap and form an independent government that would restore the Republic. They only had a few days in which they could carry out this mission: a ship was sent by the exiled resistance movement to save them from the descent of the Iron Curtain…

Xavier Bouvet studied history and communication in Leipzig and then Paris. This is his first novel, the fruit of a long-standing interest in Estonia and three years of meticulous research.