Snow Wolf [Hardcover]

Glenn Meade (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

In 1953, as rumors spread of Stalin's deteriorating mental health and a thermonuclear program designed to ignite World War III, new president Dwight Eisenhower sanctions the CIA sending two agents, posing as man and wife, to assassinate the Soviet leader. Reader's Digest Cond Bks. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At the time of Stalin's death, there were those who wondered if his demise may have resulted from foul play rather than a cerebral hemorrhage. Irish journalist Glenn Meade takes that notion as the premise for this absorbing political thriller. In Snow Wolf, the plot to dispose of the dictator originates with President Eisenhower and is entrusted to the CIA. With Stalin scrambling to see that Russia perfects the hydrogen bomb before the United States and rumored to be considering a plan to resume the Holocaust, the American side comes to believe "the future course of the whole damned world" is at stake. The book provides as much suspense as any recent thriller and characters who are more complex and three-dimensional than in most.

From Publishers Weekly

In this big-boned thriller, Meade makes his contribution to the distinguished number of first thrillers premised on the attempted assassination of a world leader (e.g., Day of the Jackal; The Eagle Has Landed) by imagining a CIA hit man targeting Josef Stalin. The main action, set in 1953, surges within a present-day frame in which Washington Post journalist William Massey tries to discover why his father, Jake, ended up in a Moscow grave more than 40 years ago. Eventually, Jake encounters Anna Khorev, the lone survivor of Operation Snow Wolf, who narrates the third-person flashback that forms most of the novel. In 1953, the U.S. government, fearful that Stalin is about to develop and use the hydrogen bomb, decides to eliminate him. The operation, headed by Jake, recruits Alex Slanski, aka Wolf, to do the deed, and Anna, who recently has escaped from a Soviet gulag, to be his guide. Though slow to build, the suspense hits overdrive when Alex and Anna parachute into Estonia, only to be hunted in turn by Major Yuri Lukin of the KGB. Meade writes with a silken pen, inking unusually sympathetic leads (though not wholly original ones; the blond Slanski, with his "cold blue eyes," clearly owes a debt to Forsyth's Jackal). Vivid cameos of historical figures, including Eisenhower, Truman, Beria and Stalin, lend credence to the story, which, according to the author, includes events of "documented history." The Cold War may be on ice, but through this literate, memorable story, Meade shows that it can still freeze readers' attention and chill their blood. Major ad/promo; Reader's Digest Condensed Books selection; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 450 pages
• Publisher: St Martins Pr; 1St Edition edition (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312144210
• ISBN-13: 978-0312144210
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,035,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding read! Meade delivers the goods!, September 29, 2005

By 

Rory Morty "Rory Morty" (Giessen, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Snow Wolf (Mass Market Paperback)

This is an outstanding book! It has a wonderful combination of a fasciniating and exciting espionage story, viewed at times in a wonderfully nostalgic background through the eyes of Anna Khorev. The novel also takes us to some fascinating areas of the world, and describes them beautifully. I whole-heartedly recommend it. The plot is primarily set in the post-war USSR, where the CIA have plotted to kill Joseph Stalin (Operation Snow Wolf), the mission being coordinated by Jake Massey, who enlisted the aid of Alex Slanksi and Anna Khorev, with the KGB under Levrente Beria attempting to thwart them at every opportunity. The characters are well developed, as are the relationships between them. And, in spite of its length, the novel remains fast paced, and addictive. I couldn't put it down.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Full of Action, October 6, 2000

By 

Rafael Aycinena (Lexington, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Snow Wolf (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is simply excellent. It is gripping, full of action, intriguing, surprising and shocking. The description of the events, the characters and the expressions are very well detailed. I think is Meade's best book so far, followed by Sands of the Sakkara (which was very enjoyable also). Anyway, it made my commuting more enjoyable.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars convinsing and compelling, October 15, 2003

By 

Alexander Gitlits (Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Snow Wolf (Mass Market Paperback)

When I first saw the book, I thought it to be some silly James Bond-like novel, without any knowledge of history in general and Russian history in particular. But after reading the reviews I desided to give it a try.

Am I glad of that!

It recreates athmosphere of the era as good as Alan Furst, and the blend of fact and fiction is very intriguing. The characters are well-drawn and realistic (and believe me, very few American writers can write realistic Russian characters, and not Crazy Ivan stereotypes).

The characters are not in the way of the action, but the action also doesn't get in the way of characters. These people have reasons for the things they say and do, and these are personal reasons, and not just moving the plot.

I'm not sure in some of the geography of the novel (I think that distances between Moscow, Novgorod and Leningrad wouldn't allow the characters to cover them in the time it took them in the novel)- but that's the only point against the novel I can think of.

This is one of those novels that prove, that a great thriller, doesn't have to be "as current as the headlines" - great story and great characters matter far more!