Darkness at Noon | Book by Arthur Koestler – Simon & Schuster

“It was quiet in the cell. Rubashov heard only the creaking of his steps on the tiles. Six and a half steps to the door, whence they must come to fetch him, six and a half steps to the window, behind which night was falling. Soon it would be over. But when he asked himself, ‘For what actually are you dying?’ he found no answer.” 

One of the most famous novels of Hungarian born author Arthur Koestler and one of the most daring political novels of the 1940s. 

Shows Stalin’s show trials in the 1930s following some inner rebellion in the Soviet-Russian Communist Party with the psychology of how people get to confess anything they want them to knowing they will be executed either way.

Another great psychological aspect of the novel is the description of prison life of the time when isolated inmates came up with different ideas to “socialize” in there.

Brilliantly written, food for thought, worthily famous piece of work.