Customer Reviews

The Prodigal Spy

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I read Walter Kanon's first novel, "Los Alamos," I felt that we had a new thriller writer with real potential on our hands. That book didn't quite work, with the author spending too much time on atmosphere and the characters and not enough time on the plot. After all, in my book you read a thriller for the plot - if you want great characters and atmosphere, read Flaubert or Bellow. With "The Prodigal Spy," however, Mr. Kanon has definitely hit a home run. The characters are truly vivid, and the atmosphere of 1969 Prague is very well done indeed. But it is the plot that will stay in my mind, enthralling in its detail, complexity and surprises; all elements of the story are expertly balanced, making for a very enjoyable experience. This tale of a young man travelling behind the Iron Curtain to meet his long-lost defector father and then returning to the United States to uncover an even more important mole is worthy of comparison with le Carre, Greene and even Eric Ambler himself. I thought the denoument rather predictable, but that didn't spoil "a cracking good read." Bravo!

It is 1950 and the House Un-American Activities Committee accuses ten-year-old Nick's father, Walter Kotlar, an undersecretary at the Department of State, of being a Communist spy. Nick finds out by seeing him being interrogated by congressmen on the newsreel while at the movies. He refuses to believe it, but his father leaves little doubt when he flees the country in the shadow of the suspicious death of a young woman who testified against him.

Jump ahead to the late '60s, and after serving time with the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Nick is in Europe with his stepfather, Larry, who is in Europe to represent the U.S. at the Paris peace talks to end the war in Vietnam. Nick has put his real father, who has since turned up in the Soviet Union where he admitted to being a spy and had received the Order of Lenin, behind him.

While in Paris Nick meets Molly, an American hippie type, who tell him his father is now living in Czechoslovakia and wants to see him. In Prague Nick's father tells him that he had been betrayed and framed for murder. He also tells him he wants to come home and that he'll give up the names of spies still operating in exchange for life in America.

Nick and Molly go to Washington to search out the spies fingered by Nick's father, including one highly placed agent named Silver, who has been selling out his country for decades and who Nick believes is responsible for many deaths. And now this spy named Silver may even be after Nick.

Mr. Kanon has written a super mystery-thriller that tells the sordid story of McCarthyism as you burn the midnight oil, eagerly reading through the pages to see what comes next in this tale of intrigue that has an ending I guarantee you won't see coming.

In a contemporary book world dominated by the macabre, the distasteful and the sappy, it's wonderful (and rare) to find a genuinely entertaining read. Kanon's prose flows swiftly and he excels at building tension into many scenes, particularly those in Prague. These qualities warrant forgiveness for the all too transparent ending and the occasional glitch that greater attention to the research might have avoided. (The Mayflower Hotel--or any other DC hotel--doesn't have 16 floors and the Soviet Embassy isn't on Embassy Row--it's downtown.) Yet Kanon vividly captures the essence of Prague in the 60s (though how he fails to mention Hradcany Castle is beyond me). These are small irritations. A larger disappointment is that the reader is more likely to remember the action at the train station in Prague than the characters who played the scene or their motivation. OK, OK. I'd like to have it both ways--memorable characters in a tightly-woven, suspenseful plot--but these days, you're lucky to get even one of them. Kanon gives us a very good read for the money and I'm thankful for that.

Having read Kanon's previous novel "Los Almos" and hating it, I don't know what possessed me to start reading the "Prodigal Spy". All I can say is that I am very glad that I pick up this book, because reading it was one of the most enjoyable reading experienced I've had.

I won't go into the plot, because many of the other reviewers have summarized it very well.

I don't give this book 5 stars only for the simple fact that I thought the end was very predicable. (I guessed the "who done it" about 50 pages before the end). However, that did not change the fact that this book was an extremely enjoyable read, and reminded me of Riech's "Numbered Accounts" (Maybe because the lead character is also named Nick??)

If you're into spy novels (or even if you're not), do yourself a favor and read this book!!!

If you are like me, you thought you knew what you thought about the Red hunts in Washington in the early 1950s and about Soviet spying activities since then. Joseph Kanon changed my perspective completely by focusing on Nick Kotlar, the son of a man accused of being a Soviet agent by the House Un-American Activities Committee. As the book begins, Nick is ten and his house is surrounded by reporters every morning before his father heads to the Capitol to testify. As the story continues, Nick plays a determined hand in trying to understand what was going on . . . and what it all meant. The book becomes an amazing story of finding oneself by sifting through the ruined lives of the older generation.

The book is in three sections (in Washington D.C. in 1950, in Europe 18 years later, and back in the United States shortly thereafter). The first two are riveting and tremendously rewarding. The final section is far too predictable to work well. I recommend that you read the book, nevertheless. You can actually skip the final section if you want. I think I would have liked the book better if I had.

I listened to this book rather than read it. The version I listened to was the unabridged one by Books on Tape. Michael Kramer does an impressive job with the different characters by altering his voice more than I thought possible. Some of the voices he does for the people in Czechoslovakia are brilliant! Try to listen to this version if you can.

After you finish reading or listening to the book, think about where today power is being used to create harm and deny freedom of choice. Where is it being done by totalitarian regimes . . . and where by democratic ones? What are the differences? How can such abuses of power be eliminated?

There are scores of novels written around the McCarthy Period but perhaps none that deals so realistically about the personal human effects of that terrible time. This is the touching story of a young man's search for the truth about his father. His quest takes him from the comparative safety of modern day America to the behind the Iron curtain. What he discovers there forces him to have to choose between granting his father's last wish and risking his own future.
The characterisation is excellent and the meeting of father and son pictured with sensitivity and skill. The air of menace in the Communist State is captured beautifully. The plot has many twists and turns but ends credibly.
An excellent read.

Joseph Kanon's first book was the well crafted "Los Alamos," which took place during 1945. This novel starts a few years later, during the height of the McCarthy red scare in the 1950s and then mvoes forward some twenty years to its conclusion.

Nick Kotlar, all of ten years old, is caught up in the McCarthy hearings when his father is suspected of being a spy. When a key witness dies, his father flees the country and settles behind in the Soviet Union. Nick is devastated by his father's actions and his mother later marries a close ffriend of the family. In many ways, the opening chapters are the most compelling as we watch a child deal with the confusion surrounding his father's defection.

Years later, the adult Nick is contacted by his father to help him come home by finding the important, and still active spy, who actually was behind his father's fleeing, a move apparently orchestrated to protect the spy from detection. This sets up what starts as an intriguing mystery, but unfortunately it becomes fairly obvious who is behind the entire plot along the way. Nonetheless, there are a few surprising twists, especially near the end, although the book is not quite as satisfying as "Los Alamos."

Still, this is a fine story and Kanon has a good ear for dialogue that is credible and realistic. Enjoy it for what it is, a rather satisfying mystery set in the Cold War era.

Joseph Kanon's first novel, Los Alamos, was a great book....... accurate, interesting, beautifully written. Prodigal Spy is all that and more for the first two parts of a three part book. It is a great read and the first 320 pages are absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, the last 100 pages, while still well written and entertaining lack plausibility. Kanon is so good at telling a mesmerizing, true-life story that it is very jarring to suddenly find him ending in a rush of events that just don't work. Despite the disappointing ending, the first two-thirds of the book are so good it is still a must read.

I like to play Tai Pei for relaxation. One of the beauties of the game is that one can see a necessary piece, but one cannot remove it until other pieces, which partially cover it, are removed. This book, like its predecessor, shows its evil persona from the start, but uses many twists and turns before the dramatis persona is fully exposed to the other characters. I found it most interesting that Sen. McCarthy and Roy Cohn were not portrayed, but a nice portrait of J.Edgar Hoover was crucial to the denoument. Degrading Cardinal Spellman to a mere Monsignor was also a nice touch. The lead Congressman seems based on Parnel Thomas, of HUAC fame. There was an American diplomat who defected to the Czech Republic; and the declassification of the Verona cables makes it clear that there were GRU/NKVD couriers during the immediate post WWII era. This book raises an interesting "What If?" Alger Hiss had fled when Whittaker Chambers pulled the microfilm out of the pumpkin? Again if one likes Columbo and Tai Pei, this book will delight. On the other hand, if one likes the complete surprise of Murder She Wrote, or Sherlock Holmes, then this is not for you. Definitely a must for Fu Manchu, Diagnosis Murder, but Clarence Darrow was a shirt-tail relative!]

This Kanon novel is excellent. Alan Furst and Joseph Kanon have set a new standard for espionage thrillers.

Nick, a young boy in 1950, alert and wise beyond his years, watches as the House Un-American Activities hearings destroy his father and his family life forever.

19 years later (about page 75), Nick, now a Viet Nam vet, begins to unravel the mysteries of 1950, first in London and then (for the bulk of the book) in Post-1968-Russian-Invaded-Prague. Nick now has Molly as his less-than trustworthy sidekick and sex partner. Nick gets "cleverer" and "cleverer" at maneuvering himself through the murky maze of Soviet-Eastern-Bloc espionage, police, intrigue, and nastiness, visits with his exiled, dying father, and then escapes back to the west with the answers he sought.

To fully appreciate the plot, deeply imbedded in the history of post-WWII, it may help if you're over 60. Without an understanding of the McCarthy era slime politics of the 1950's in the USA, you could be at sea, however, and be forced to rely only on the well-crafted plot to keep you turning the pages. With or without grounding in the history of the 1950's, you'll still enjoy the book greatly.

There is a modicum of heterosexual sex, some romance, and plenty of family and political dynamics, to say nothing of a pretty good glimpse into life behind the Iron Curtain. I visited all of the Eastern European places in the story in the early 1960's and certainly remember the eerie border-crossing moments, unexplained delays and absolute fear of the police.

The finale moves quickly, and the reader is introduced to the master of evil, J. Edgar Hoover, himself. The ending of the story is greatly satisfying as the bad guys get their just desserts. Kudos to Kanon! Great story from one of the best story-tellers in print today.