HOW A MAN DID NOTHING AND SAVED THE WORLD

Russia 1983. Stanislaw Petrow leads a quiet life with his wife Raisa and their two children, Jelena and Dimitri. Every day follows the same routine – work, school, mushroom-filled piroshki for dinner. But what "Stasik" does at work is a closely guarded secret. One day, Petrow covers a night shift for an ill colleague and returns forever changed. On that seemingly ordinary evening in 1983, Stanislaw Petrow had to make a decision that could have determined the fate of the world.

Lukas Maisel’s new novel plunges us into the Cold War era, where a false alarm in the nuclear defense system nearly triggered World War III. With his uniquely elegant prose, Maisel explores chance and destiny through this hauntingly relevant historical event.