Two men: One discovers the cost of keeping secrets, of building a career within a government agency where secrets are the operational basis. Noel Leonard works for the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, mapping coordinates for military actions halfway around the world. One morning he learns that an error in his office is responsible for the bombing of a school in Afghanistan. And he knows suddenly that he is as alone as he is wrong. From his windowless office in DC to an intelligence conference in Switzerland, and back to his daughter s college in Virginia, Noel claws his way toward a more personally honest life in which he can tell his family everything every day. Another man learns that family secrets have kept him from who he is and from the ineluctable ways he is attached to a world he has always disdained. This unnamed narrator, a cartographer, is the son of a career diplomat whose activities in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and then in Europe during the Cold War may not have been what they were said to be. He, too, travels to Switzerland, but his quest is not to release himself from secrecy it is to learn how deep the secrets in his own life go. With a voice like John le Carré s and the international sensibility of Graham Greene, Frederick Reuss examines the unavoidably covert nature of lives that make their circles through Washington, DC. A Geography of Secrets is a novel of the time from an acclaimed author who knows the lay of the land.
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
This is a tale of two men connected only by different secrets. Noel Leonard works for the Defense Intelligence Agency, analyzing satellite images to map targets in the Global War on Terror. Not even his wife knows what he does. Then, when he learns that his error has caused a school in Afghanistan to be atomized, he realizes how heavily secrets weigh on his and his family’s lives. A parallel plot concerns another man, unnamed, who is a mapmaker and comes to suspect that his late father’s foreign-service career also harbors secrets. He travels to Europe to uncover them. Deeply evocative, Reuss’ novel offers a vivid portrayal of the lives and doubts of its protagonists. It is a confusing and constantly obfuscating world, characterized by the mind-numbing nomenclature of weapons systems; by what Reuss calls bureaucratic jujitsu; and by the government’s penchant for secrets masked by rhetoric about “transparency.” All that cloudiness is contrasted by the acute awareness Noel and the mapmaker have for their surroundings. An often beautiful but challenging book that will engage thoughtful readers with both the author’s characters and his ideas. --Thomas Gaughan
Review
a thoughtful, beautifully written novel by Washington writer Frederick Reuss that tells the story of two men -- a defense analyst and a mapmaker -- and their struggle with the secrets that define them. and A Geography of Secrets has the texture and snap of a modern-day Graham Greene novel, painting a world in which even the smallest choices have devastating consequences -- and where, as one character tells us, Secrets don't keep, they putrefy. --The Washington Post
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The book-jacket praise likens Frederick Reuss to Graham Greene and John le Carré. Both comparisons have point. All three authors have written novels with a background in espionage, but not with the thriller aspect as their only focus. Le Carré has been increasingly concerned with the effects of the profession on the human beings involved, and their relationships with others. Greene, before him, concentrated on the moral, even spiritual, dilemmas that come of having to redefine one's loyalties. Is is surely not coincidental that Reuss' protagonist is a devout Catholic who, near the climax of the book, consults with his priest about his loss of divine grace.
But Reuss is cooler, almost distant. There is virtually no thriller aspect here at all; any violence that occurs is relayed by satellite images from Waziristan, to be deconstructed in air-conditioned government offices. Greene's sense of locale is so strong as to have gained its own name, Greeneland, and le Carré writes in the same tradition. If anything, Reuss is even more concerned with locale; his leading characters are professional map-makers, and each chapter begins with a map coordinate that may be precisely pinpointed on Google. But they are bland, almost sterile places: Washington office buildings, leafy suburbs, golf clubs, quiet lakeside towns in Switzerland, a square in downtown Munich. For all his emphasis on maps, the territory that Reuss stakes out is the inner landscape of the mind. While he opens his characters with the precision of a surgeon, I might have preferred a less aseptic approach; I missed the visceral torment of Greene or the thrills of le Carré.
Noel Leonard works in the Defence Intelligence Analysis Center in Washington, viewing images, making maps, selecting targets, and analyzing the effects of the resultant strike. Sometimes mistakes are made; the scurrying white larvae on the green night-scope images of a strike on a supposed terrorist stronghold turn out to be innocent school-children. Noel's wife is provisionally supportive, but he can only tell her that he is a government bean-counter. His college-age daughter has troubles of her own and excludes her father from one of the most important decisions of her life. Losing any sense of self, Noel eventually turns to his priest, but by that time he has a lot of repair work to do, in his career, his family, and his soul.
There is another equally important character in the book: an unnamed narrator who is also employed in Washington making maps. Although we know little about him, he is in many ways the more interesting of the two, because his goal is to open out his life, rather than desperately holding it together. The book opens with his father's funeral in Bern. A chance encounter with a man who describes himself as his father's oldest friend makes him wonder if his father had been working for the CIA. His unraveling of the secrets will bring him to a fuller appreciation of his dispersed family, even as Noel Leonard, on the other side of the tipping scales, faces the danger of losing his.
The book is completely enjoyable as the separate but parallel stories of two richly developed characters and the secrets that shape their lives. But there is a hint towards the end that the two may in fact be connected. Fascinating, if so, but I wish it were more than a hint.
But Reuss is cooler, almost distant. There is virtually no thriller aspect here at all; any violence that occurs is relayed by satellite images from Waziristan, to be deconstructed in air-conditioned government offices. Greene's sense of locale is so strong as to have gained its own name, Greeneland, and le Carré writes in the same tradition. If anything, Reuss is even more concerned with locale; his leading characters are professional map-makers, and each chapter begins with a map coordinate that may be precisely pinpointed on Google. But they are bland, almost sterile places: Washington office buildings, leafy suburbs, golf clubs, quiet lakeside towns in Switzerland, a square in downtown Munich. For all his emphasis on maps, the territory that Reuss stakes out is the inner landscape of the mind. While he opens his characters with the precision of a surgeon, I might have preferred a less aseptic approach; I missed the visceral torment of Greene or the thrills of le Carré.
Noel Leonard works in the Defence Intelligence Analysis Center in Washington, viewing images, making maps, selecting targets, and analyzing the effects of the resultant strike. Sometimes mistakes are made; the scurrying white larvae on the green night-scope images of a strike on a supposed terrorist stronghold turn out to be innocent school-children. Noel's wife is provisionally supportive, but he can only tell her that he is a government bean-counter. His college-age daughter has troubles of her own and excludes her father from one of the most important decisions of her life. Losing any sense of self, Noel eventually turns to his priest, but by that time he has a lot of repair work to do, in his career, his family, and his soul.
There is another equally important character in the book: an unnamed narrator who is also employed in Washington making maps. Although we know little about him, he is in many ways the more interesting of the two, because his goal is to open out his life, rather than desperately holding it together. The book opens with his father's funeral in Bern. A chance encounter with a man who describes himself as his father's oldest friend makes him wonder if his father had been working for the CIA. His unraveling of the secrets will bring him to a fuller appreciation of his dispersed family, even as Noel Leonard, on the other side of the tipping scales, faces the danger of losing his.
The book is completely enjoyable as the separate but parallel stories of two richly developed characters and the secrets that shape their lives. But there is a hint towards the end that the two may in fact be connected. Fascinating, if so, but I wish it were more than a hint.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In Washington, DC, at the Top Secret Defense Intelligence Analysis Center Noel coordinates military actions in Afghanistan. However, a miscalculation leads to the errant bombing of a school. Stunned he blames himself for the deaths of the innocent as he ponders how would he react if his daughter at college in Virginia died due to a bureaucrat's mistake. Adding to his overwhelming guilt, he has no one he can share his remorse with; not even his family or his supervisors. He ponders quitting as he heads to a security conference in Switzerland because a conscience is a handicap in his line of business.
Ethan the mapmaker has just learned of the top secrets of his father in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and afterward in Europe during the Cold War. He is stunned as his dad seems more like a spy than a diplomat as he had always believed. His revelation started in Switzerland at his dad's funeral where he met an old friend of his father; a buddy he never knew existed. He hopes to learn more about his father's espionage work. In Bern, he and Noel meet for the first time as one seeks to close a chapter of his life while the other seeks to open a chapter of his life; both enshrouded in secrecy.
Running on two character driven subplots, Frederick Reuss provides a terrific thriller as the lead pair approach secrets differently but with a similar desire. One has spent a lifetime hiding them but now has a desperate need to reveal them if he is to move on pass the tragic error; while the other has a desperate need to know the secrets his father apparently took to the grave. Written like a horizontal hyperbola with two foci connecting Noel and Ethan, readers will relish the aptly titled A Geography of Secrets.
Harriet Klausner
Ethan the mapmaker has just learned of the top secrets of his father in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War and afterward in Europe during the Cold War. He is stunned as his dad seems more like a spy than a diplomat as he had always believed. His revelation started in Switzerland at his dad's funeral where he met an old friend of his father; a buddy he never knew existed. He hopes to learn more about his father's espionage work. In Bern, he and Noel meet for the first time as one seeks to close a chapter of his life while the other seeks to open a chapter of his life; both enshrouded in secrecy.
Running on two character driven subplots, Frederick Reuss provides a terrific thriller as the lead pair approach secrets differently but with a similar desire. One has spent a lifetime hiding them but now has a desperate need to reveal them if he is to move on pass the tragic error; while the other has a desperate need to know the secrets his father apparently took to the grave. Written like a horizontal hyperbola with two foci connecting Noel and Ethan, readers will relish the aptly titled A Geography of Secrets.
Harriet Klausner
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A chance encounter in a wooded area outside of Washington DC gives rise to parallel narratives of lives spent in the harboring of secrets and sins. Two characters follow a similar trajectory, consumed by the isolation and guilt of the secret life, they follow the path that is dictated by their choices. Their intriguing stories are rich in the exploration of consciousness. The action ranges from an intimate vision of Washington's dark bureaucracies and European capitals teeming with intrigue. This engaging novel is both a pulse-quickening read and a literary delight -- beautifully written, sharply paced, intricately constructed. The parallel characters finally intersect again in a final breath-taking stunt. Strongly recommended
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to figure out but fun to read
I never really got the point of this book, although it was well-written, and enjoyable for anyone familiar with the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ann Marie Moriarty
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Geography of Secrets ? Nah, more like a road map to boredom
I'm so glad I bought this book with an Amazon gift card and not my own money. This novel was ranked by the Washington Post Book World as one of the best of 2010, and I can't... Read more
Published on February 20, 2011 by Bryan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absorbing and authentic; great writing!
I was very much taken by this novel, A Geography of Secrets, although I had never heard of its author prior to this. Read more
Published on November 24, 2010 by Timothy J. Bazzett
