morning and discovers that Grechko has already procured three dozen other eggs. Colonel Grechko grants Lev two ration cards and tells him he'll live a long life by keeping his mouth shut. The German siege is lifted in January of 1944. In 1945, Lev is in his apartment reading when he hears a knock at the door. He answers it, and Vika is standing in the hallway with her suitcase and a dozen eggs. Lev suggests they make an omelet, and Vika states that she doesn't cook (thus revealing that she is narrator's grandmother). Reception The book was well received by most critics, including Jesse Berrett of SFGate and Boris Fishman of The New York Times. According to Jennifer Reese of Entertainment Weekly, "Benioff has produced a funny, sad, and thrilling novel. A-". However, Donna Rifkind of Los Angeles Times wrote that while the book "features a snappy plot, a buoyant friendship, a quirky courtship, an assortment of menacing bad guys, an atmosphere that flickers between grainy realism and fairy-tale grotesquerie and a grim but irrepressible sense of humor," it left her "thoroughly and discouragingly unmoved." The novel was also a major artistic inspiration for the post-apocalyptic video game The Last of Us. The game's director Bruce Straley said: "It's nice to be inspired by [...] the right things. City of Thieves is an amazing book. Everybody should check that out." The book makes an appearance in the sequel, The Last of Us Part II, where the character Abby is seen reading the book. Abby, later in the game, meets a boy named Lev, who then becomes a major protagonist in her narrative arc. References 2008 American novels American historical novels Black comedy books Novels set in Saint Petersburg Novels set in the Stalin era Novels set during World War II Novels by David Benioff