About the book: 2011 / Three bestsellers in one volume! The best novels about penal prisoners of the Great Patriotic War. The combat path of the Soviet penal company from the damned heights near Rzhev, which became for them “the height of the death row” - after this battle, no more than a platoon remained from the entire company in the ranks - to the merciless battles on the Kursk Bulge and during the crossing of the Dnieper. It was not for nothing that the penalty soldiers were dubbed “ suicide bombers" - "atonement for their guilt with blood", they were obliged to carry out the most impossible orders at any cost, regardless of losses, they were the first to go on suicidal reconnaissance in force and to storm impregnable enemy positions. And the chance of surviving in a penal battalion or penal company was one in ten.