Customer Reviews

36 Yalta Boulevard

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Growing up in California at the height of the Cold War, my heroes of espionage fiction were almost invariably British or American spies, and mostly the former since the Queen's agents seemed to play the game with more panache. My personal favorite was Quiller. (It's no accident that the most famous Western secret agent is 007 of Her Majesty's Secret Service.) Only Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko series whisked me away behind the Iron Curtain. Thus, it's unusual - or perhaps not now that the U.S.S.R. is dissolved - that an Eastern agent operating in the Cold War era against "our side" should emerge as a literary protagonist.

While living in Romania, American author Olen Steinhauer got the idea to write a series of crime/spy novels set in the Soviet Bloc countries of old. Here in 36 YALTA BOULEVARD, the protagonist is Brano Sev, an officer and sometimes assassin working for a generic Ministry for State Security headquartered (on Yalta Blvd.) in the Capital of a generic Eastern European satellite of Russia. We know that Sev was born in a small town north of the Tatra Mountains, which fact likely makes him Polish, but it's perhaps not Poland that he works for. Czechoslovakia might be the closest fit, or Romania; it's left vague. But, no matter.

In the majority of Cold War spy novels that I've read, the hero's basic mission is known beforehand: extract a defector, steal a secret, or disrupt a nefarious KGB plot. Only rarely have I been thrown into an unlighted maze with the secret agent to stumble our way through the darkness to the end. The best plot I've ever read and watched was just so. (I'm thinking of John le Carré's superlative conclusion to the Smiley series, the book Smiley's People and the BBC's TV miniseries adaptation, Smiley's People.)

In 36 YALTA BOULEVARD, Sev, after being framed for murder while on assignment in Vienna and subsequently tossed from the Ministry and relegated to a factory job, is given a second chance by his former boss Colonel Cerny. Brano is to return to his hometown of Bóbrka to scrutinize a petroleum engineer who seems to have made suspicious contact with the malicious Americans while on a recent visit to the West. Soon after returning home, Sev is once again set up to take a murder rap and must run. Who's out to get him, and why? Into the maze he goes, and we tag along.

From a narrative standpoint, one of the most intriguing characters of this thriller, besides Sev himself, is the object of his middle-age love interest, the mysterious Yugoslav Dijana Franković. What makes her an especially clever creation is the fractured English which she speaks. I've never known an author to go to so much trouble to differentiate a character by such means and to such an extent, and I admire the cleverness of it. Dijana to Sev:

"I am not blind. I can to see your faults. And the future ... what knows? Maybe we can to be together only one week, maybe five years. Maybe we cannot to live together. I don't know. All what I know is this, Brano Sev. When I am with you, it feels like correct. And when you is not here, I want you to be with me."

36 YALTA BOULEVARD is a thinking man's spy escapade with a couple of totally unsuspected plot twists at the end. I liked it very much for the plot's construct and location. It's an engrossing read.

I thoroughly enjoyed Olen Steinhauer's first two novels, The Bridge of Sighs and The Confession, set in a never revealed post--World War II Eastern European country. The five book series takes place over five decades starting in the 1940's so this third entry is set in the 1960's. The author's previous two works were more murder mysteries while 36 Yalta Boulevard strays into Alan Furst espionage territory. The chief character, Brano Sev, is just not as engaging as Emil Brod or Ferenc Kolyeszar. Also the plot is very convoluted and does not really pay off in its resolution. Still I remain a fan of the series overall and look forward to the final installments.

The most intriguing thing about this story is that Brano Sev, the Eastern European secret policeman protagonist, actually believes in socialism. Not in the frothing-at-the-mouth, man-the-barricades way, but through a quieter sense of hope. Despite being beaten to a pulp every time he falls into the hands of the country he is serving (the unthinking brutality just gets comical by the end) and numerous chances to escape to another life, Brano goes back to his country and his job in the end.

It's a tribute to Steinhauer's writing, that we can still see Brano's humanity and admire his intelligence despite his being so wrong about the big picture. At the end, Brano admits that the sysytem of which he is a member is corrupt, but it's the corruption he knows. It's a type of national love really, which infects all of his countrymen, especially the exiles who have left it.

The story involves many characters, subplots, and settings. The first two-thirds slowly lay the groundwork, and the last part brings all the threads together in ways you wouldn't have expected. It's a good Marlowian thriller but the story really is about Brano, a man who's both complex and simple.

I had never heard of Olen Steinhauer before reading "A Bridge of Sighs", but once I started this book I was compelled to read the remaining four ( Confession, 36 Yalta Boulevard, Liberation Movements, Victory Square). Mr. Steinhauer writes of an unnamed Eastern European country (possibly Roumania) after the second World War; the political changes that take place during the decades following; and the effects these changes have on a group of detectives in the People's Militia. The author has created a vivid picture of the country during this time of turmoil and developed characters that are sometimes sympathetic, occasionally repulsive, but always interesting.

As I wrote about "The Confession," Steinhauer is a marvelous, powerful, compelling blend of Koestler, Franzen, Dostoevsky, Greene, le Carré, Mankell, Nesbo... Slowly unfolding, multi-layered plot with beautifully sculpted characters set into action amidst the oppressive and pervasive gloom, fear, and despair of Eastern European totalitarianism. Steinhauer writes strong, clear prose that "sounds" right for the setting. And yes, it moves rather slowly, but it's measured and deliberate, not sluggish. If you have ever enjoyed any works by any of the authors listed above, you should find a spot on your Kindle for Steinhauer. I began with "The Tourist" and am now working forward from "The Bridge of Sighs." Great to know that there are four more to savor.

But 36 Yalta takes his interwoven series to a new level. Heretofore, the militia (homicide police) were operating in a complex but still compassable world. Brano Sev, the State Security officer (think KGB), takes the book to another level altogether, a level of intrigue, betrayal, confusion, and fear that competes with Arthur Koestler, le Carré, et al. The plot leaves the reader quite nearly as confused as Brano. As well, we have no sense of the how or why of Brano's loyalty especially from this side of the Cold War. Steinhauer has created a remarkable character as he pushes his series of novels along. Frankly, I have no idea why Steinhauer is not as celebrated as the authors listed at the beginning of this review.

This series is remarkable as each book moves the larger plot of the series along, focusing on different characters, settings, and decades - reminds me of the films, "Red," "White," and "Blue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Characters from earlier novels slide along the edges of the subsequent books, but seen rather differently by the various characters. A well-handled and intriguing conceit.

A warning: these books move slowly - as above a deliberate and stately pace that, in fact, builds tension. Be patient - it's worth it.

Brano Sev was introduced to us in the first two novels of this series, but he was always a peripheral character. Now he comes to the fore. But, in this intriguing novel set in Vienna in the late 1960s, I found that too many times Steinhauer is throwing out 'red herrings' (no pun intended) just to bring the story along without giving us any information. There are curves within swirls, but all we get is lost further in the maze.

Sometimes a novelist will try to stretch a small idea, into a big book. Ed McBain is guilty of this in many of his later '87th Precinct novels'. The problem is that the reader is left with a lot of fluff because there isn't enough meat to make a real sandwich. This novel (which is also know as "Vienna Assignment") is really just an interlude between the first two novels and the last two. Steinhauer needed something to bridge the gap, and here it is.

Maybe Steinhauer felt that he needed to give us more insight into Sev and the Ministry of State Security apparatus; as if most of us were born after 1989. One of the things he does during this book, is use his knowledge (it was written in 2004 and published in 2005) of the fall of communism to make some comments about the impending failure of the State, and it's self-destruction. This would be fine and dandy if it was written in 1967, but it's not.

While very readable, it's not up to the standards of the first two books.

Zeb Kantrowitz

There are books written so well that unthinkingly, you move easily from reading them to something approximating watching them unfold and the experience becomes something like entering an absorbing movie. Steinhauer creates what appears as an accurate, believable mystery with no false notes. A great ride.

I've read almost all of Steinhauer's books. Normally, I don't like books about "behind the iron curtain," but this guy's books just make it so interesting. I hope I'm notified when his next book comes out.

Olen Steinhauer has created a series of crime novels set in an unnamed Soviet bloc country. This novel follows a character identified in a previous novel, The confession, who is named Brano Sev. Brano is an agent for the Ministry for State Security, which is located at 36 Yalta Boulevard; hence the title.

As the novel opens, the reader learns from the Prelude that Brano, acting in the position as the Resident, or chief spy, in Vienna, is drawn into a set-up where he is recalled to 36 Yalta Boulevard and he is then expelled from the Ministry and sent to a tractor factory.

As we enter the main story, we find Brano back in his home town for a short holiday partially redeemed because he is sent by the Ministry to interview a man who had defected and then returned. Then the plot thickens.

In trying to establish contact with the defector, Brano stumbles over a dead body and is later accused of murder. Then he joins the defector in escaping the homeland again and ends up in Vienna under interrogation and torture by the Austrian security forces. Brano accepts all these events in turn and proceeds with the faith that he is part of a Ministry mission and that when he needs to know something, he will be informed.

With several twists and turns, this book provides the reader with a good mystery.

I highly recommend this book!

36 Yalta Boulevard is the address of the Ministry of State Security in Olen Steinhauer fictional eastern European country. His lead character, a brooding, relentless operative, Brano Sev, sets out on what may or may not be a set up that costs him his life or at least a couple dozen years in the gulag.

The plot has Brano working for the man who recruited him to the service at the end of the Second World War and/or invisible hands behind the scenes. Brano is never quite sure but his faith in his superior is absolute, even when he's accused of murder, abused in prison, and has the opportunity to defect. This is where Steinhauer shines. A run of the mill espionage novel would have this guy break and dash off with a pretty girl, a fancy car, and all the trappings of western decadence. Not Brano Sev. He's loyal.

His willing ignorance of machinations above his rank is Brano's greatest fault, that and his failure to accept that others, including his mother and another expatriate, might actually care for him. These elements serve to bolster a story that reveals a side of the cold war mostly ignored by popular novelists.

I recommend this book for patient readers interested in exploring a place where things are never quite good, just less bad at times.