BOOK REVIEW- THE OUTFIT BY DAVID TALLERMAN

BOOK REVIEW: THE OUTFIT BY DAVID TALLERMAN

7/3/2022

The tagline for The Outfit reads ‘The absolutely true story of the time Joseph Stalin robbed a bank’.

I’m almost tempted to leave the review there; as the cop wryly notes as he offers Val Kilmer’s wife in Heat witness protection for her and her child as the price for betraying his gambling, backrobbing arse, ‘this shit here sells itself’. Certainly, when Tallerman told me about this project over late night drinks at FCon 2019, I was almost obscenely excited by the prospect. Stalin, unarguably one of the great monsters of the 20th century (arguably the biggest, in terms of body count) spent 1907 planning and executing one of the biggest bank robberies in the history of the Russian Empire. Apparently. Who knew?

That’s the hook, and a not inconsiderable one at that. Nonetheless, as the author notes in the afterword, what proved really astonishing is just how much material there is around this; the formation of the gang that will undertake the heist, the extraordinary audacity and violence of the caper, and the way the loot is handled in the aftermath all feel like something out of a grimier Hollywood spectacular (or, for that matter, a story of outlaws and the Wild West); with an added dimension of secret police, double crosses, and the wider historical revolutionary moment. Given what Stalin became, it’s perhaps understandable that this part of his history goes relatively underemarked; nonetheless, it’s a gobsmacking story on it’s own terms.

Tallerman does a brilliant job with such dynamite material; he has a prose style that melts back into the page, allowing the story to tell itself, and the pacing is relentless, bringing to mind the very best ‘holiday read’ paperback experience - and, to be crystal clear, I mean that as strong and unambiguous praise. Historical fiction can all too easily become bogged down in minutiae and detail, or become leaden by the sense of it’s own self importance. Here, Tallerman realises wisely that the weight of the story is all there in the bare facts, and so focusses relentlessly on laying the narrative out in lean, vivid prose.

As a result, the novel is a pleasure to read from start to finish, breathlessly building to the moment of the robbery, and then delivering a heart in the mouth action sequence, before dealing with the inevitable bloody aftermath.

The novel also engages with the politics of the moment with admirable clarity and without sentiment; the brutality of the then-current Russian regime is clearly depicted, as is the idealism of the revolutionaries; and so, too, is the brutality of those revolutionary methods, the impact of their actions. As befits a fictionalised account of true historic events, Tellerman plays a straight bat with the facts, makes the best guesses he can with regards to the interiority of the key players, and lets the reader sort through their complicated thoughts and reactions. This is not a place to find pat answers, and I’d wager whatever your prejudices are in terms of politics, you’re likely to find something in here to challenge you.

Most of all though - and I really can't stress this enough - this is an absolutely ripping novel; rollicking, thrilling, twisty; in short, one of the best heist novels I’ve read this decade, without qualification. For that reason alone, I really cannot recommend it highly enough.

KP
9/5/21

The Outfit: The Absolutely True Story of the Time Joseph Stalin Robbed a Bank for Lenin's Revolution
by David Tallerman

Lies and double-crosses, secret police and explosions, a carriage chase, a mattress stuffed with cash and a one-eyed master of disguise…

In 1907, the revolutionary Joseph Djugashvili – who would later take the name Joseph Stalin – met with an old friend, a clerk at the Tiflis branch of the State Bank of the Russian Empire, for a glass of milk. Over talk of national pride, the spirit of the new century and Djugashvili’s poetry, they agreed the beginnings of a plan.

With the aid of the Outfit, Djugashvili’s hardened crew of “expropriators,” they would pull off the biggest, bloodiest and most daring robbery in Georgia’s history, and ruthlessly change the direction of the Bolshevik revolution forever...