The Button Man [Hardcover]

Brian Freemantle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1993

A serial killer's murder of a woman working in the American Embassy in Moscow leads to joint Russian-American murder investigation, full of Byzantine intrigues, political double-dealings, and media hysteria. 40,000 first printing. $40,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British writer Freemantle offers grand, literate fun dressed up as a novel of suspense. A young American economist is murdered in Moscow, her hair and the buttons on her clothes chopped off. Her uncle, a powerful U.S. senator, demands that the American government participate in the investigation, forcing an uneasy collaboration between Col. Dimitri Danilov of the Moscow Militia and FBI Russian desk-head William Cowley. Their shaky start gives way to friendship as they discover that each is dogged by personal demons: Danilov is fighting to extricate himself from an adulterous affair; Cowley struggles against booze. As the investigation progresses, sordid secrets emerge from the U.S. Embassy and new murders involve Russian and American law enforcement agencies in some nasty maneuvering for position. Sharp-nosed readers may smell the killer halfway through, but Freemantle ( Comrade Charlie ) keeps suspense high right up through the slightly over-the-top, bittersweet ending. Much of the book's interest lies in its picture of contemporary Moscow, a place of gaudy crime and corruption where even a high-ranking cop must take his windshield wipers off when he parks ("a basic rule of Moscow motoring"), and where flashing a Marlboro pack is the one sure way to stop a cabbie. Freemantle's command of "Americanese" is somewhat distracting--"tailback" instead of traffic jam; "roll-neck" for turtleneck--but this is a small quibble about a book that successfully mixes procedural and thriller with engrossing aplomb.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

That writers are dreaming up still more variations on the serial-killer thriller is some sort of testament to human ingenuity. Here, Freemantle (the seriocomic Charlie Muffin spy series, etc.) takes his own erratic stab at the subgenre by setting loose a maniac in Moscow, to be hunted down by a joint Russian- American task force. Who fatally knifed American embassy employee Ann Harris, then chopped off her hair and snipped the buttons from her coat? Colonel Dmitri Danilov of the Moscow People's Militia wants to know--as does Ann's powerful uncle, US Senator Walter Burden, whose meddling in the case forces Danilov to accept the help of FBI agent Bill Cowley. Cowley and Danilov cooperate edgily (it's some time before Danilov admits that a male cabbie has been killed in the same way as Ann), and Freemantle--whose thrillers are always character- driven--limns the tentative dance of trust between the two cops in suggestive detail (e.g., Danilov's fear that his stained shirt- -product of a typically broken Russian washing machine--will diminish him in the eyes of the gleaming Yank). Meanwhile, subplots about marital betrayal (Cowley's subordinate in Moscow is the FBI agent who stole his wife; Danilov is cheating on his own wife) add further resonance. But as the cops pursue clues (forensic, as well as eyewitness offered by a third victim, who survives) that lead them to accuse the wrong man, it becomes clear that, here, Freemantle's plotting skills fall short: Readers may i.d. the real killer long before the author intends, and they'll also see through his cursory attempts to shunt suspicion onto yet a third suspect. Read this for its smart local color and sharp insight into human relations--not for its strained, eventually almost suspenseless, storyline. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 390 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; First Edition edition (August 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312087160
• ISBN-13: 978-0312087166
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,822,394 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Freemantle [b. 1936] is one of Britain's most acclaimed authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold over ten million copies worldwide. Born in Southampton, Freemantle entered his career as a journalist, and began writing espionage thrillers in the late 1960s. Charlie M (1977) introduced the world to Charlie Muffin and won Freemantle international recognition--he would go on to publish fourteen titles in the series.

Freemantle has written dozens of other novels, including two featuring Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the Cowley and Danilov series, about an American FBI agent and a Russian militia detective who work together to comabt organized crime in the post-Cold War world. Freemantle lives and works in London, Englad.