RaveBoston ReviewIn a meticulous recreation of the events leading up to that shocking assassination, the book provides a searing denunciation of the Stalinist perversion of socialism’s democratic promise ... The novel explores the way Stalinism first corrupted socialism in the Soviet Union, then extended its toxic imprint beyond its own borders, finally leaving a long legacy that far outlived Stalin himself. Padura is not interested in the standoff between the capitalist and socialist worlds; he untangles the repressive elements within socialism itself ... Some of the novel’s most chilling sequences take place in Moscow, which Ramón visits during a break in training ... In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Padura captures something of the evolution of the island’s literary scene from the 1960s to the present.
