Lev, a moody Jew, and Kolya, a brash Cossack, are saved from death because one powerful man needs their thief skills to acquire a dozen eggs for his daughter's wedding cake. What follows is a race against time through the streets of St. Petersburg as it is blockaded by Nazis, where Kolya gets laid often and Lev gets sad often and they travel together on their absurd quest for nonexistent eggs. Benioff writes the most soulful lines as if they were punctuation for a harsh and cold truth. His story is not pretty, nor poetic, nor beautiful, but it is honest and brutal and necessary. I hate books about world war 2, but this one was worth the read.