Customer Reviews

Siberian Light

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Siberian Light" is the sometimes eloquent, often savage and utterly riveting discovery of an unspeakable American secret in the heart of contemporary Siberian oil country. Brilliantly structured and fast-paced right to the finish, the book draws on Robin White's considerable personal experience of the Siberian landscape, Russian politics and the oil industry. Yet in the end, it is the chilling plausibility of using Siberia as a camp for unregenerate American criminals that turns the story inside out and raises troubling questions. Compared with the Gulag Archipelago, what might this possibility mean? Our access into the labyrinthine complexities of post-Soviet law enforcement (the most convincing portrayal since Martin Cruz Smith1s depiction of Soviet-era enforcement in Gorky Park) is through Gregori Nowek, whose dogged persistence in spite of layers of corruption and deception is as admirable as his laconic (very Russian) sense of humor and his genuine humanity.Our access into the AmerRus oil conglomerate, including the Elgen prison complex is abetted both by Nowek1s daughter rebellious sixteen-year-old daughter Galena (who is lured to Tunguska to become a sex prisoner) and by the fascinating Dr. Anna Vereskaya, the wildlife expert (whose courage and wit convey the dark secret via satellite to friends in the American research community just in time).With our access we see institutional corruption in AmerRus that makes ordinary Russian corruption look tame. The soulless ruthlessness with which the immune conglomerate goes about protecting its evidently profitable prison business seems as much a warning about what now exists as about what might be. If you can stomach this book to its end, it will try your soul. The Siberian tigers seem admirable in comparison with the humans involved in the crime. One particular prisoner suffers so much and works so much good by a simple gesture just before his death that the institutional mentality that consigned him to this place seems more criminal than he.The premise that Americans would offshore to Siberia its most hardened criminals is fraught with irony, given the Soviet-era use of the region to intern its criminal population. True enough, the prison population in the United States is reaching such proportions with such costs that many out-of-the-box solutions have been proposed. Asked about ideas I could suggest to alleviate the problem, I simply recommended one solution NOT to contemplate, and I gave the righteous "law and order advocate" inquirer a copy of Siberian Light.

Have you ever studied, visited or wondered about Russia, the Soviet Union, or what has risen from their ashes? If so, Siberian Light is for you. Robin White blends the other-worldly conditions of daily life in Siberia with murder, greed, loyalty and a hero who is searching for meaning in his life.

Nowek, the hero, finds himself wanting to be heroic, yet doesn't know if the system has beaten the heroism out of him. A surprising blend of unlikely accomplices and intriguing sub-plots give the book great pace. This murder mystery respects its reader's intelligence, letting out enough rope to piece some things together while painting a painfully honest picture of the harshness of life on the other side of the world. By setting the story in Siberia, which quickly proves to be a land that tests one's limits, White's characters are believable in their wide range of good and evil, since the place itself can and does bring out the best and worst in every one of them.

Regardless of this review's trite "Hollywood pitch" title, Siberian Light is a book worth reading for its well-developed characters, poetic moments, ironic truisms and amazing attention to detail (from the upside-down nature of things in Siberia to a deft use of Russian sayings and their meanings without being heavy-handed). Robin White lets us flex imaginative muscles through fabulous descriptions and accurate assessments of the attitude and character of post-Soviet society. Even though the book is a murder mystery, the more intriguing mystery turns out to be how the characters will fare in the end. Will justice prevail? Will the "good guy" win? And how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys in Siberia?!

Buy the hard cover; this one deserves a permanent place on the shelf.

To a reader's delight, and what must be the great pain of the Russian populace, Russia has gone from being an ideal setting for thrillers because of a totalitarian system that made just about everything illegal, to an ideal setting for thrillers because of it's complete lawlessness. Siberian Light finds Gregori Nowek, a geologist & mayor of an oil boomtown in Irkutsk, Siberia (his slogan was "Can I Do any Worse?"), investigating the murders of Andrei Ryzkhov, an intermediary for the AmerRus oil company which is drilling for Siberian light crude oil, and of two of his own militiamen, who went to investigate why Ryskhov's dog was barking.

Nowek's superior, Arkady Volsky, wants him to conduct the investigation, but State Prosecutor Gromov has other ideas & turns loose ex-KGB Major Kaznin. The investigation leads Nowek, & his loyal-but-cynical driver Chuchin, to Tunguska & the AmerRus base, but along the way he has run-ins with the local mafia, falls in love with Dr. Anna Vereskaya, a tiger biologist with an uncanny resemblance to Nowek's wife who died three years earlier in an Aeroflot crash. Just to further complicate life, his 16 year old daughter Galena runs away.

There's a lot going on here, but White manages to keep all of the plates spinning and his portrait of life in post-Soviet Russia is fascinating.

GRADE: B+

I am one of the small number Americans who has had the opportunity to spend a few months in Siberia. I found the characters and the settings to give an accurate portrayal of this area of Russia today. The protagonists were believeable and fascinating. The story kept me spellbound to the end. You can really get a feeling for life in Siberia and a respect for the spirit of the people who live there and survive.

This is not just another Russian mystery novel. Robin White's character development is great and he develops a truly unique Russian environment for his story to play itself out. Great reading.

Sometimes it is nice to read for pure entertainment and I feel that this is a good book to do that with.

The premise is so far fetched that in my mind this book is like some of Robert Harris' "what if" thrillers ("Fatherland", "Archangel"). However I really liked the dialogue (which with the help of Chuchin the driver was sometimes funny and "snappy") and I liked the characters and wanted to see how their lifes were going to unfold and what the end of the book will bring for them. In fact I got so much into the book that I read all 400 odd pages in 3 days.

One thing that I did feel was very genuine was the description of life in a small Siberian town. Reading about an out of the way town in a country that used to be a super power and now is almost Third World, lost in a a landscape of huge mountains and snow, struggling to stay civilized...made me think about all the things I take for granted.

Is it predictable? Sort of. Is it about deep human feelings? Not really. Is it fun to read? Yes. Does it make someone living in USA feel fortunate about our high standard of living? YES!

I read "Siberian Light" a year or two ago, and I am currently reading it again because, from time to time, I recall its poetic and gritty lines. This is an excellent read, masterfully done. White has a fine talent for charcterization. I hope that if the author hasn't written more about Siberia, he will--and soon.

Great book. This book was a great read the whole way through, but it seems like it was shortened. In about five pages it went from climax to finish with a poor conclusion, we never found out in detail what happened to the characters. In addition, there was one character that was being built, but nothing happened with that character.

The stuff on Siberia was some of the best stuff I've read, but the ending needed some more work.

The characters got sort of Star Wars like 3/4 of the way through the novel; however, the author did a good job of the Star Wars like actions.

Started strong, then lost its way. The relationships between the main characters goes from interesting to tedious. I quit about three fourths of the way through.

The book lacks the luster of Robyn White's Typhoon -- so much so that you wonder of this author is another Robin White. The read begins with a slow start -- the introduction of numerous Russian characters, place locations, and Russian politics that it is easy to get lost in the names and have trouble following the plot. However, after a slow start, the books picks up and becomes more fascinating. The Russian political corruption and general lifestyle described makes you think he is describing some backwards third-world country. It makes one wonder why we ever thought the Russians were a threat to our Western life-style.