Khodorkovsky, a businessman who at the time was the richest man in Russia and a harsh critic of the government of Vladimir Putin, was arrested on charges of fraud on October 25, 2003. He was put on trial in 2005 and then held in various Russian penal colonies for the next eight years. My Fellow Prisoners is an account of his life in prison. It focuses less on Khodorkovsky himself than on some of the people he met during his time in custody, including prison guards and fellow inmates. His objective is to paint a picture of life in a contemporary Russian prison in a variety of aspects and from a range of perspectives. The book consists of brief chapters, described in one review as “sketches,” mostly three to five pages long.