Sasha Filipenko found his own reader immediately - after the success of "Former Son" and the two following novels. "Travlya", published by "Znamen" even before the book came out, according to the electronic portal "Zhurnalny Zal", became the most popular text of all Russian thick literary magazines in 2016. This means that his own reader understands what to expect from "Red Cross". He will not be deceived: the novel contains a shocking, on the verge of plausibility, story of a young hero; and a plot compressed like a spring; and a cinematic junction of times; and a paradoxical denouement. But there is also news: all this signature Sasha "fiction" is completely overshadowed by the documentary series he obtained and introduced into the novel - the history of contacts between the USSR People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and the International Red Cross during the war. Sasha Filipenko is a master of creating a mood with associative editing. Introducing the "Red Cross" to the reader, let us use his technique and quote Joseph Brodsky: "Children come from love. / You are alone in the world now. / Do you remember the song that I used to sing in the dark? / This is a cat, this is a mouse. / This is a camp, this is a watchtower. / This is time, quietly / killing mom and dad."