Customer Reviews

Liberation Movements

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you haven't read Olen Steinhauer yet, I highly recommend you get his previous books and read them. This latest work is the best yet, however, and doesn't require that you read any of the previous works in his Eastern European crime series.

I won't get into the plot as you can get the gist of that from the Book Description above. The story jumps between the events leading up to a hijacking, and the resulting investigation, and the murder of a Russian solider in Prague seven years earlier. The chapters are short and fast paced. At first each character and story line seems unrelated, but as Steinhauer begins to weave the various elements together the suspense and the pace builds. It didn't take too long for me to be hooked. I found myself feverishly reading trying to figure out the clues and unlock the mystery.

What unifies each character, besides their connection to the murder investigation, is their search for meaning in the seeming unrelated events that have led them to where they are. Not only are they trying to unravel the mystery of the hijacking but they are also wrestling with where their life is going; with how they got here and why. This theme is also highlighted by the use of a character that may or may not be able to predict the future.

Do we truly have free will or do outside forces and the predetermined course of events carry us along? Is each choice we face an opportunity to set a different course or do some choices determine the path our life will take? Will one bad choice mar our lives or do we have a chance for redemption (or revenge)? These are some of the philosophical questions that are the undercurrent of the story. They are subtly weaved into the plot so they don't awkwardly intrude, but they bounce around in your mind as you are reading. Steinhauer doesn't give any answers but he asks some powerful questions.

In case the above hasn't made it clear, I found Liberation Movements to be a thoroughly fascinating and entertaining book. Two reasons stick out:

1) The characters. The characters really drive the story and Steinhauer allows the reader to get inside their heads. He manages to keep the reader focused on the "now" of the story and yet keep the tension and pace moving forward. In other words, each character feels fully developed rather than just a stock piece needed to make the plot work; their actions flow naturally. Surprisingly, this is done without pages of backstory and exposition.

2) The quick pace. It doesn't take long before Steinhauer has you sucked into the story. Short, tightly written chapters push the story forward and as events unfold the tension builds. But this is done without losing the style and power of the previous books. Although the pace is quicker you still get the feeling of visiting a foreign country and of getting a glimpse into the lives of the inhabitants of this fictional, yet seemingly real, place. It has the structure in some ways of an airport paperback but has the style and depth of a literary novel.

Olen Steinhauer has quickly become one of my favorite authors (and blogger). I highly recommend his books to anyone. Whether you like history, crime fiction, espionage thrillers, literary novels or all of the above you will enjoy his skillful and evocative stories. Liberation Movements is his best book yet, and a work that I hope gains the recognition that it deserves.

Edgar Award finalist Steinhauer's beautifully crafted novels of crime and political intrigue center on various members of the People's Militia in an unnamed Eastern European country during the Cold War. Each novel moves forward a decade and homes in on a secondary character from the previous book.

This fourth (there is one more coming) shifts point-of-view between several characters and moves between the horrors of 1968's Prague Spring, when Soviet bloc troops crushed the Czech liberation movement, and the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a passenger plane in 1975.

The book opens with the interrogation of a student, Peter, caught near the Austrian border in 1968. Peter, apolitical, only got involved because of a girl. He's learning to regret it. Over the next few days he befriends a foreign soldier, wallows in envious misery and discovers new abilities in himself.

In the next chapter we meet Libarid Terzian, an ethnic Armenian from the People's Militia, traveling to an Interpol conference in Istanbul. He plans to defect and is trying to compose a letter to his wife. A strange woman who seems to know way too much about him and his future sits down beside him on the plane. The chapter ends with her cryptic comments fulfilled in a highjacking of the plane.

In Istanbul the People's Militia officers Brano Sev (the main character from "36 Yalta Boulevard") and his young protégé Gavra Noukas, await Terzian's plane. Also waiting is Ludvik Mas, an agent from the Secret Police. "What's he doing here?" Brano asks, just before he learns the plane has exploded in midair.

As Brano, Gavra and another young militia officer, Katja Drdova, investigate the terrorist murders, the Prague Spring subplot continues to unfold in tandem, building an intricate, suspenseful story with a surprising, character-driven ending.

Steinhauer's complex character development factors in the effect of state repression and secrecy on personality and choices. His atmospheric writing also makes liberal use of irony and humor, much of it sardonic. This is a masterful series, which deserves a much larger readership.

-- Portsmouth Herald

Those couple of Olen Steinhauer's espionage thrillers that I've read previously, both featuring the protagonist Brano Sev, are unique in my experience of reading spy novels in that the perspective is from the eastern side of the Iron Curtain during the years of the Cold War. Brano is an officer in the People's Militia of an otherwise anonymous Eastern Bloc nation and is stationed in its Capital. Brano is no menacing 007; he's just a regular guy doing a job on behalf of his country and its political system. He's very much like the dedicated, mid-level, civil servants one comes across in the marvelous thrillers by Gerald Seymour.

In LIBERATION MOVEMENTS, there's a "then" and a "now." The former is 1968 and Czech musicology student Peter Husak, caught up in the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops that ended the Prague Spring, betrays his fellow student activists and then commits a brutal murder to get himself a new life and identity. The "now" is 1975, when a plane from the Capital to Istanbul is taken over by Armenian hijackers. The craft subsequently blows up in the air, killing a Militia homicide investigator. Sev and two of his subordinates, Gavra Noukas and Katja Drdova, are put on the case.

The storyline veers back and forth between the two timelines which, of course, ultimately merge.

In this book, Katja is actually the main protagonist - and one to whom this reader became most sympathetic. I imagine she's just a one-off character in Steinhauer's fictional world, but she's an effective one. Bran, on the other hand, stays pretty much in the background pulling strings. Gavra, while interesting, could just have well been left on the editing room floor as far as I was concerned; he was one of the unnecessary distractions.

I liked LIBERATION MOVEMENTS very much as a revenge story. Unfortunately, as I see it, the story got needlessly cluttered with both the Gavra character and the wherefore of the plane hijacking. Some of the details of the latter didn't even make much sense. Therefore, I'm knocking off a couple of stars, which may be more of an extreme reaction than is warranted.

For those who are reading through this five part series by Steinhauer, this is probably the weakest of the bunch. Again the conniving secret ministry Colonel Bruno Sev is involved in a convoluted story about murder, the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and clairvoyance. The problem with this story is that Steinhauer holds all the cards all the time and drops them on the table as a sort of 'fait accompli' so that there isn't much you can guess at but just read along. This style of writing each chapter from the point of view of the character is interesting but in this case tends to be uneven in what we learn along the way. We know that some of the characters are lying to us and to themselves while others are being manipulated into thinking they know what is going on, making everything as clear as mud.

After a while, I began to get bored with some of the stories in that they didn't seem to have any relevance to the story. What we have is Sev and his superior, as two cats playing with a room full of mice with the only intention of terrorizing those involved but to no useful end. At the end of the story we are left with nothing but the knowledge that working in or with a Security Service like that Stasi or KGB is a dangerous game where no one including those in charge is ever sure of what is the reason for what they do or what the expected result is supposed to mean.

I'm hoping that the last book, "Victory Square" which brings us back to the original 'main character' Emil Brod will show us a denouement that will make taking the time to read the five books worthwhile.

Zeb Kantrowitz

That I was so happily surprised reflects badly on me, not the genre. I do not read espionage stories set in the former iron curtain countries because for me it is it is so annoying never to know how any names are pronounced, especially when they are such long names and often with so few vowels. It really slows the pace and I can never remember who is who. Also, everything is always so bleak.

Nevertheless, the reviews made me curious about Steinhauer's last book, 'The Tourist,' and when I finally read it I loved it. BUT--it was set mostly in Paris & the US and other places with easy names like Brooklyn. Back on the horns of the same old dilemma, I took a chance and ordered Liberation movements and now look forward to reading all his books. I do have a little more trouble keeping all the characters straight than most of his fans, I think, but I love a good plot--or two or three--and Steinhauer delivers the goods.

I was really surprised reading this book because I kept waiting for the Olen Steinhauer that I've read so much of to emerge and create another stellar book. But alas, it didn't happen. It was "okay", and if you're going to read the entire five book block, it's obviously important. The fact that it's a pretty short book makes it much easier, and there are much less characters to keep track of.

KINDLE READERS:: As of 1/11/2011, this book is *not* available for the Kindle, although all the other books in the series are. So not only are dealing with the weakest link in the chain, but you'll need to go back to ordering and waiting around for the paperback to arrive.

I honestly don't even know (or really care) who the main character(s) were. Three or four people vied for position as the "key" character, and if it was supposed to be Ktaja or Gavra I really was half hoping for them both to be killed off so I wouldn't need to read them again in the next book.

In Steinhauer's defense, I just read the first chapter of the next book in the series Victory Square. Back to awesome again!

This is Steinhauer's fourth entry in a series about conflicted police and intelligence agents in a fictitious Communist-era Eastern European country. The plot takes place during the 1970's and involves terrorism, righting past wrongs (including the Armenian genocide), and great game intrigue. Brano Sev, who has appeared in the entire series, is prominent yet again but it is the actions of Peter, Gavra, and Katja that make the story. It jumps back and forth from 1968 Prague to Istanbul in 1975 to uncover overlapping mysteries. Overall the series is well done with interesting characters, historical accuracy, and moody atmosphere. However, this entry along with the previous one were not as strong as the first two which had more mystery versus spy formula. Yet, I remain a fan and look forward to the last one, Victory Square.

As you read the series of Steinhauer books you move thru the decades from the 50's forward solving murders. You also get a full history lesson on modern communism and its evolution. This book takes you forward with the old characters aging and falling away and new members of the force stepping up. Recommended.

No doubt that Steinhauer is writing police procedurals or crime novels, but then I guess, so was Dostoevsky. The penultimate novel in his series of Eastern European crime novels, Steinhauer again crafts a superb tale of intrigue, murder, and vengeance set in an unnamed Communist country. It begins in the Prague Spring of 1968 and moves to the mid-70s as Communism begins to lose its grip especially on a post-WWII generation that has begun to question their faith in the glories (and sacrifices) of socialism. Steinhauer has carried forward a handful of characters, and we come to know them well. The plot, setting, and atmosphere of each novel are superb.

Using characters and their tangled histories as chapter headings, he moves the action along cleverly, stutter-stepping in time, place, and character but never confusing the reader - for long, that is. Although I have not lived or travelled in Eastern Europe, I feel as if Steinhauer has captured the time and the place perfectly. This body of work deserves our attention and admiration. Truly remarkable series.

Excellent novel, as is the entire Eastern European series from Olen Steinhauer. The poor quality of the digital conversion, however, was distracting and annoying. Nearly every other page had words/sentences run together.