Archangel

Amazon.com
Archangel is a remarkably literate novel--and simultaneously a gripping thriller--that explores the lingering presence of Stalin amidst the corruption of modern-day Russia. Robert Harris (whose previous works include Enigma and Fatherland) elevates his tale by choosing a narrator with an outsider's perspective but an insider's knowledge of Soviet history: Fluke Kelso, a middle-aged scholar of Soviet Communism with a special interest in the dark secrets of Joseph Stalin. For years, rumors have circulated about a notebook that the aging dictator kept in his final years. In a chance encounter in Moscow, Kelso meets Papu Rapava, a former NKVD guard who claims that he was at Stalin's deathbed and says that he assisted Politburo member Beria in hiding the black oilskin notebook just as Stalin was passing. Before Kelso can get more details, Rapava disappears, but the scholar is energized by the evidence Rapava has provided. As Kelso begins to pursue his historical prize, however, his investigation ensnares him in a living web of Stalinist terror and murder. It soon becomes clear that the notebook is the key to a doorway hiding many secrets, old and new.

Harris's understanding of Soviet and modern Russian is impressive. The novel rests on a seamless blend of fact and fiction that places real figures from Soviet history alongside Kelso and his fictional colleagues. Especially disturbing are the transcripts from interrogations and the excerpt from Kelso's lectures on Stalin; the documents provide chilling evidence to support Kelso's claim: "There can now be no doubt that it is Stalin rather than Hitler who is the most alarming figure of the twentieth century." --Patrick O'Kelley


From Publishers Weekly
As in his first thriller, Fatherland, Harris again plunders the past to tell an icy-slick story set mostly in the present. Readers are plunged into mystery, danger and the affairs of great men at once, as, outside Moscow in 1953, Stalin suffers a fatal stroke, and the notorious Beria, head of Stalin's secret police, orders a young guard to swipe a key from the dictator's body, to stand watch as Beria uses it to steal a notebook from Stalin's safe and then to help bury the notebook deep in the ground. These events unfold not in flashback proper but as told to American Sovietologist C.R.A. "Fluke" Kelso by the guard, now an old drunk. Following a lead from the old man's story as well as other clues, Kelso, soon accompanied by an American satellite-TV journalist, goes in pursuit of the notebook and, later, the explosive secret it contains; others, including those who cherish the days of Stalin's might, are on the chase as well. With this hunt as backbone, the plot fleshes out in muscular fashion, fed by assorted conspiratorial interests and a welter of colorful, if sometimes too obvious (Stalin as madman; Beria as sadist), characters. The crumbling ruin that is today's Moscow comes alive in the details, which continue as Kelso's search moves north into the frozen desolation of the White Sea port of Archangel. Sex, violence and violent sex all play a part in Harris's entertaining, well-constructed, intelligently lurid tale, which, along with his first two novels, places him squarely in the footsteps not of "Conrad, Green and le Carre," as the publisher would have it, but of Frederick Forsyth. And, like Forsyth, Harris has yet to write a novel without bestseller stamped on it?including this one. Simultaneous audio book; optioned for film by Mel Gibson. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Among the many benefits of Russian glasnost has been the evolution of espionage fiction into a more cerebral form of international thriller. Archangel is a worthy example of how the history of modern Russia can be woven into a mesmerizing adventure yarn. Beginning with a curious encounter between an aged Russian and a visiting British historian, Harris's story carries the reader through a strata of politicians, prostitutes, policemen, and patriots. Narrator Michael Kitchen's ability to represent diverse foreign dialects is simply stunning. His reading provides an intriguing cadence that is both engaging and easy to follow. Readers who enjoy the Arkady Renko detective stories of Martin Cruz Smith (Gorky Park, Havana Bay) will be very pleased with this novel. Most highly recommended.ARay Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L., IA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Michael Specter
Robert Harris ... has given those of us who retain some literary nostalgia for the Evil Empire exactly what we have been waiting for...


The Economist
Well-researched and skillfully observed, Archangel examines how Russia's uncompleted history--the "past that carries razors and pair of handcuffs"--continues to affect its attempt at free-market democracy. Underlying the story is the whispered issue of what makes Russia Russian.


The New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
After finishing Archangel, when you think about what happens, you find it so outlandish as to defy credibility. But Harris makes you believe it as it's happening. What he does particularly well is evoke the atmosphere of contemporary Russia, not only the physical sense of it but also its threat of violent instability, the howling of its caged wolves.


From AudioFile
The Oxfordian antihero of this taut, atmospheric thriller seeks to redeem his lackluster academic career by ferreting out Stalin's notebook from its Moscow hiding place. British stage star Anton Lesser plays each melodramatic moment at full Shakespearean throttle. One can almost feel the intensity of his acute concentration. Although his slightly adenoidal voice discomfitted this reviewer, most listeners will find his a satisfying performance. Y.R. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
A possible Communist (or Facsist) restoration in Russia furnishes promising material for fictional espionage (witness Frederick Forsyth's Icon, 1996). Harris posits the existence of hitherto-unknown papers belonging to Stalin, which vanished into the hands of the notorious secret police chief, Beria. This intriguing curtain-raiser is confided to historian "Fluke" Kelso by Beria's bodyguard. Sensing a historical coup, Kelso finds confirmation of the missing papers in Dmitri Volkogonov's biography of Stalin (Triumph and Tragedy, 1991) and interviews one of Volkogonov's sources, a cagey ex-KGB operative. Kelso also tries to recontact Beria's bodyguard, who had held back on the location of the papers, by looking for his daughter. He finds both: the father has been butchered, but the daughter is alive, and she leads Kelso to the papers. They are curiously innocuous, alluding only to a young girl from Archangel. Kelso's digging has by now attracted heavy surveillance from Russian intelligence, as well as an unwanted partner in the form of nosy, obnoxious TV reporter R. J. O'Brian, who's itching to break the story of Stalin's nubile paramour. So, everyone's off to Archangel, whose dilapidated state Harris evokes as well as the increasing tension of Kelso's search for the now-elderly girl. Instead of the girl, they turn up her mother, whose story of a baby--the son of Stalin--raised in the surrounding taiga diverts everyone, tailing off into the forest for the blazing conclusion and revelation of Joe Junior's political significance. Building on his accurate historical sense, Harris inveigles readers with intricate plotting and concrete descriptions of Russia's contemporary "look," rewarding them with a thoroughly thrilling tale. Gilbert Taylor


From Kirkus Reviews
Lg. Prt. 0-375-70412-4 Top-flight thriller, something of a variation on le Carr's The Russia House, as an American historian tracks down a MacGuffin of far greater value than the Maltese falcon. Fluke Kelso, having published two books about the fall of the Soviet empire, finds himself invited to a symposium in Moscow that will supposedly focus on newly released archival material. Some think Kelso will reveal yet another bombshell. And that might be true, since he has secretly interviewed elderly Papu Rapava, bodyguard of KGB chief Lavrenty Beria, about the night that Stalin died. Rapava observed all as Beria took a key from Stalin's neck and stole from a safe an oilskin pouch holding the dictators memoirs (an improvisation on the theme of Harris's first book, 1986's Selling Hitler, about the faking of the Hitler diaries). Later, the pouch was buried in Beria's backyard. The ever-avid Kelso goes ferreting through some recently declassified papers in the Lenin Library, then hunts up Vladimir Mamantov, a Stalinist fanatic he'd interviewed years ago for his big book about the Soviet collapse, a book sneered at by Mamantov because it painted Stalin black. Mamantov concedes that in Western terms the man was a monster, but avers that by Soviet standards he lifted the USSR from the tractor to the atomic bomb. And Mamantov opines to Kelso that Stalinism will return: some 20 million Russians still believe Stalin was the greatest figure of the centurya rather large bloc should some other charismatic figure rise anew to lead it once again. After Kelso makes a secret trip to Beria's house and discovers freshly turned earth, he falls in with an American TV reporter while being tracked by the RT Directorate's chief. Deaths ensue as the trail leads to the White Sea port of Archangel, where Kelso does indeed make a momentous discovery. No personal demons here to soothe, but Harriss (Enigma, 1995, etc.) knack for re-creating historical events puts him in very select company. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Robert Harris' Archangel is my novel of the year. This book combines a fascinating tale of a man who stumbles on the final secret of Josef Stalin, while at the same time giving you a terrifying insight into modern Russia. — Jeffrey Archer


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices