Soul of Viktor Tronko [Hardcover]

David Quammen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Peacefully engrossed in writing a biography of a termite collector, Kessler gets a surprise visit from an old friend. Mel is a one-time CIA agent now ready to reveal an espionage event that occurred two decades earlier. When Mel is murdered, Kessler is seduced by the whiff of a really big story. He pursues the leads that suggest one Victor Tronko was a fake defector let loose to mask the presence of a KGB mole in the CIA's highest levels. When Kessker dislodges the wasps' nest, retribution strikes. Sinuously intricate and compellingly realistic, this cloak-and-dagger caper will be as well received as The Zolta Configuration. While most thrillers let the reader bob like a cork on the surface, this author's knack is to draw down a reader's full attention with complicated dialogue, shifts in narrative, and intense activity. Barbara Conaty, Medical Coll. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 350 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 5, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385195966
• ISBN-13: 978-0385195966
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, sophisticated., July 7, 1999

By 

Mitchell Burger (Beverly Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soul of Viktor Tronko (Hardcover)

I read this book several years ago. One of the better, more cerebral espionage books I've ever read. Been trying to find his other spy book (i.e., "Zolta"), but its out of print. Too bad the author does not appear to be writing this type of fiction anymore--while his nature stuff is good, I'd love to see him fill the void left by Adam Hall.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth digging around to find, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Soul of Viktor Tronko (Hardcover)

It's a spy-thriller type book, the story of a journalist who starts rooting around in CIA affairs, trying to find the truth about a man named Viktor Tronko. Tronko was a Soviet, who may have been a defector, or maybe a ruse; in any case he told the Americans some pretty important information. If they believe it. The novel swarms with characters, all of them realistic and lifelike, all imaginative. Although the facts and people become confusing after awhile, the end is very satisfying and definately worth reading to. It's also amusing that Quammen wrote a novel wherein the main character is a middle-aged journalist who enjoys writing about nature (and through that about people) and has a fetish for Eugene Marais. The writing is very good, the story although confusing is interesting.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The elusive Mr Quammen, November 5, 2009

By 

Claude Lambert (Savannah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Soul of Viktor Tronko (Hardcover)

If you are looking for a more complex spy novel than Le Carre can write, you got to read this. It is excellent, but it needs smart and patient readers to keep up with tiny bits of information lost in a lot of disinformation. The hero is a journalist who tries to get to the truth by interviewing retired CIA agents. The agents talk because they are bitter and unsatisfied, so their reports are tainted. Therefore it is impossible to decide if Viktor Tronko is a Russian defector or a double agent. The journalist is attracted to the case by the tantalizing promise that there is or might be a link between Tronko and the Kennedy assassination, or between Tronko and a traitor within the CIA.
The reading is made more light by the desire of the journalist to go back to his real love: natural history (as Quammen himself did). The real life naturalist Eugene Marais plays a role too, as his work was stolen by the poet Maurice Maeterlinck, another (real) case of lie and disinformation!