21. Black Widow - Sandy McCutcheon

I was apprehensive about reading this before I’d looked up some history of the Beslan school siege, and I read a couple of the BBC news stories from the time before I even opened the book. However, when I did, I was hooked immediately. The initial chapters let us know that the entire book will span 3 days, which scared me that the story would be grossly disappointing with too much detail. However, I was mistaken, and found it to be a great read.

The book follows the story of 6 women who were caught in the siege, who want to get their revenge. Included in the story is a lot of Chechen and Russian culture, as well as societal observations from during the siege. The way in which the women get revenge is disgustingly fascinating - I feel bad for being so interested, and although some of the details of the explosives are probably hit and miss (no pun intended), the rest is cruelly impressive.

It is not exactly a happy book, nor one for the faint-hearted. It is however, interesting, eye-opening, and occasionally predictable. Particularly the ending. However, despite being predictable, it was not as overly disappointing as it could have been. It does however, end very quickly.