Snow Wolf [Mass Market Paperback]

Glenn Meade (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1997

In the heart of the Cold War, they sent him to plot the ultimate assassination. Now they want him dead...

It is 1953. Joseph Stalin, the world's most tyrannical dictator, is teetering on the edge of insanity, and about to plunge the world into nuclear chaos. Only one man and one woman can penetrate the Iron Curtain and stop this madman, before it's too late.

But someone inside the Kremlin knows. And as the KGB's deadliest manhunter pursues these two CIA-hired assassins, another duel unfolds, between secret warriors of the West and East, with a U.S. agent caught in between. Now that agent must do the unthinkable: find his way to the heart of the Soviet Union and stop the mission he himself set in motion-before it ignites World War III.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Could Joseph Stalin have been murdered by an international hit team led by an American CIA agent and acting on orders from President Eisenhower? Fifty pages into this large and chewy first thriller by an Irish journalist, just published in paperback, you'll probably be: (a) totally convinced, or (b) so entranced by the characters, the perfect period details, and beautifully-described action that it won't matter.

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 526 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (May 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312962118
• ISBN-13: 978-0312962111
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489,966 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!