Customer Reviews

Walking Back the Cat

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I enjoyed this book and found it very easy to read finishing it in one long day. I particularily liked the character development of the Soviet killer Parsifal and would have enjoyed a whole book or at least a few more chapters about him getting to be what he was. The Indian stories and their gambling was tied in and fit in the story well.

Robert Littell doesn't seem to get the recognition he deserves. Every time I read one of his novels I am pleasantly suprised. Walking Back the Cat is a great read, with great character development.

Walking Back the Cat seeemd interesting at first, especially with the catchy spy-like codenames and something set in seemingly present-day America, but through it all it was desparately missing something. That something was the magic of spy novels, the twists and turns that leave you guessing and the surprises and calamity that make you laugh outloud. Whereas "The Company", "The Defection of A.J. Lewinter" or "The Debriefing" dealth with the gritty, crafty, and seemingly endless abyss of mystery of the bygone days of espionage, Walking Back the Cat just bored the heck out of me from one page to the next. It starts out like a spy novel with a myserious meeting in a public library, but then it goes off on a giant tagent througha an Indian reservation and doesn't come back to the actual spy part until 3/4 of the way through; easy to see why you could lose interest.

A veteran of the Gulf War (Finn) finds himself with legal problems in Seattle. He flies off in a gondola to escape the deputy sheriff. He ends up landing in an Apache reservation in New Mexico. He makes friends with the Apaches and discovers that their casino is being extorted. Trying to get help to put an end to the thievery he approaches the local newspaper publisher who unknown to Finn is involved in the conspiracy. He is betrayed and a meeting is set up for him to meet an FBI agent. There is no FBI agent. Enter Parsifal, KGB agent living under deep cover. Parsifal is an interesting character. Brilliant, deadly and with an extreme sense of smell.Parsifal was ready to terminate Finn when some things about the mission don't seem right to him. After much talk they decide to collobarate and get to the bottom of things. It turns out that some former CIA officers had set up an operation to continue the cold war with the funds from the casino. They got a high level KGB defector who gave them all the operative information on Soviet U.S. operations. So, they were in fact controlling the KGB's top assassin (Parsifal) in the U.S. Plenty of excitement and a quick read at 218 pages.

I bought this book on a whim because I like cats and I have relatives in New Mexico. Found out this book has nothing to do with cats but is an exciting spy story. Native Americans are among the victims but are very clever at helping to bring the bad guys to justice. The bad guys are all former or current CIA types who are going rogue and not in a good way. A former military man recovers from his war trauma and gets a fresh start. Great reading on all fronts.

Littell is an uneven author, in my opinion. His "The Company" was one of the best spy books I ever read. His other works, however, are frustratingly mediocre. This is no exception. He introduces a wonderful character -- Parsifal-- about whom I hope to read in future Littell books. He also introduces Finn, a strange guy whose character never really gets developed in this book. As for the story, I found it highly improbable and I found the ending unsatisfying. The book was set on an Apache reservation in New Mexico and portions of that aspect were interesting, but again, not fully developed. Every time I pick up a Littell novel I'm hopeful, but with the exception of "The Company" I'm always disappointed.

What to do with Cold War thrillers after the Cold War? This book is an effort to answer that question. Much of the characterization, plotting, and effort at moral ambiguity is typical of Cold War thrillers. The plot features the CIA versus Soviet agents but in something of a moral inversion. To the extent that Littell is aiming at something more than entertainment, he asks about what happens when old certainties vanish. This is a worthy theme but this breezy book can't really sustain that theme. The characterization, plotting, and quality of writing is relatively superficial.

I seldomly fail to complete a novel of intrigue. I tried to remain patient hoping that something would develop that captured my imagination but nothing did. I put the book back on the bookshelf without completing it.