Philps clearly wants The Red Hotel to do justice to those who served truth and mete out some punishment to those who failed it. The book’s structure somewhat hinders this ambition. It awkwardly jumps between past, present and future, and from one set of interpreters and journalists to another ... The other challenge that Philps faces is historical. A longtime foreign correspondent with experience in the Soviet Union and Russia, Philps has ably reconstructed the different stories and settings of the Metropol. Yet he also seems to aspire to say more about the role of truth and translation in wartime ... Philps’s book does, however, raise questions about how audiences should interpret news about contemporary conflicts ... Philps is also clear-eyed enough to show that truth will not always come out — at least, not easily, and not without cost.
Philps...conveys Nadya’s story in stirring detail, both her improbable adventures before World War II and the ordeals she experienced in the Gulag after her arrest in 1948.
It is as strong a condemnation of Stalin's murder, insanity, paranoia and paralysing control, on a personal level, as readers might expect to find anywhere. There are also large question marks over the probity, integrity and basic honesty of many of the journalists Philps discusses ... One of the great achievements of The Red Hotel is to flood the reader with the personal details of these women's lives ... Readers who know someone contemplating a career in journalism may want to invite that person to read this book. It tells us of a moral vacuum that should shame and depress any who read it.
A sizzling read full of bitchiness and high jinks. But it is also a deeply moral book, outlining a simple truth: that the press pack abroad often operates in a bubble and is deeply dependent on local translators and fixers. Philps... has an eye for detail ... There are obvious parallels to Vladimir Putin’s arbitrary arrests, his use of visa restraints against journalists, Russian state media’s fake news, and the depiction of critics as enemies of the state. Philps doesn’t labour the comparisons, but any reporter who has had to operate in a pack while covering a dictatorship will feel a twinge of recognition, and perhaps of guilt.
Immaculately told ... Philps’s book is almost faultlessly balanced between racy narrative and historical analysis, though I wish he had not referred to Ukraine as Russia’s "breadbasket" ... The Red Hotel is a riveting trip through the labyrinthine corridors of Soviet disinformation, which taught the present regime all it knows.
Engaging and fast paced ... While the writing is vivid and captivating, the book would have benefited from tighter editing to reduce some repetition and to create a smoother storyline.
[A] multilayered story of wartime foreign journalists ... Though overlong, this thoughtful narrative puts their work into the appropriate historical context. Authoritative, sometimes repetitive history of the terrible ramifications of the silence about Stalin’s lies.
