The Shadowland - Elizabeth Kostova

A novel set in post communist Bulgaria.  The beginning and ending are week, but the main body of the story, which recounts the life of a classical musician under the communist regine, is quite interesting.  Kostova paints an interesting picture of what seems to be a forgotten history.  Bulgaria under communisms underwent something similar to what Stalin perpetrated in Russia - suppression of the educated class, random arrests, labour camps, elimination through gulags of certain sectors of the population.  And then, post communist regime, the rise of apparatchiks in the new corrupt capitalist system.