The Wall [Hardcover]

John Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 1998

Written by a former Berlin bureau chief for "U.S. News & World Report", this thriller takes readers on a chase through Central Europe in November, 1989, just as the Iron Curtain collapses.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When was the last time you read a thriller with half a dozen major characters, all of whom you could believe in? John Marks pulls off this amazing trick in his first novel--and also manages to capture perfectly the heady mixture of hope and fear surrounding the collapse of the East German government in 1989. Captain Nester Cates, a 35-year-old African American intellectual and former radical who is now working for U.S. Army Intelligence is not the most popular man in West Berlin. Ridiculed by his military colleagues for his interest in obscure concepts such as democracy and German culture, Cates befriends another Army outcast named Stuart Glemnick--a complex, weak man with a shadowy past in the Middle East. Glemnick quickly gets Nester and several other key characters (including Glemnick's brother, a conflicted entomologist who sees everything in terms of bugs) into serious trouble by defecting to the East just a few hours before the Berlin Wall comes down. The cast also includes a wonderfully gutsy, naive young American journalist who stumbles into a career-making situation, and one of the scariest CIA spooks ever--Carlton Styles, who lost much of his face and mind to a terrorist bomber. Carlton is now convinced that the man who disfigured him is masquerading as the bug expert. Author Marks covered Eastern Europe for U.S. News & World Report, and scenes like the attack on demonstrators in Prague vibrate with authenticity that could only come from firsthand experience with Iron Curtain culture. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

After half a century of Cold War thrillers, Marks achieves the ultimate ironic turn in his story of an American spy who defects to the East?just three hours before East Germans begin spontaneously crossing into West Berlin, bringing down the wall and the time-honored plot device at once. Marks explains Stuart Glemnik's act, its reasons and rippling effects by taking us on an elaborate tour of Central Europe in late 1989: Berlin, Rocken (Nietzsche's burial place), Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest. At the same time, Marks shifts among a half dozen linked characters: there's Stuart's best friend and fellow spy, half-German, half-African American Nester Cates, who tries to retrieve him; Stuart's German girlfriend Uta Silk, who defects with him but then turns back to the West; and Stuart's brother Douglas, a Dallas pest exterminator who comes to Berlin after losing his job and wife, and whose resemblance to the elusive terrorist Jeri Klek is the (somewhat iffy) wildcard in the tale. A former Berlin bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, Marks handles his involved story line with assurance, avoiding the fictional travelogue mode endemic to journalists' narrative efforts and investing his story with a distinctive vision of history, borne out through plot, scene and dialogue. Though the plot sometimes creaks from a contrivance overload, Marks's success in conveying the deeper truths beneath the headlines results in an intelligent, memorable and thoroughly engaging debut.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 377 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1St Edition edition (September 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573221228
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221221
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,936,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Once, years ago in Belgrade, I met a beautiful blonde Serbian nationalist named Simonida, and we got to talking vampires. I knew from my own research that the vampire of American popular culture had its roots in Serbian folklore, and she offered to do more than confirm the truth. She asked me whether I'd like to meet a few vampires in person. I declined, but out of my cowardice, my latest novel Fangland was born. A few hundred kilometers to the west, the Bosnian war was unfolding, with images of violence and brutality that wouldn't have been out of place in a saga of the undead.


Aside from vampire-hunting, I've been a 60 Minutes producer and a Berlin bureau chief for US News & World Report. My books include three novels and one work of journalistic memoir, Reasons To Believe: One Man's Journey Among The Evangelicals and The Faith He Left Behind.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first post-Cold War thriller, September 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wall (Hardcover)

This is the best new novel I've read this year. In a stunning display of bad timing, American intelligence officer, and Communist spy, Stuart Glemnick defects to the east on the same day that the Berlin Wall comes down. Comparisons to the thrillers of Le Carre, Deighton, and Graham Greene are apt, but only up to a point. As Stuart's brother Douglas and Stuart's German lover Uta chase Stuart from one collapsing Communist dicatorship to another, the novel is as much madcap picaresque as it is a thrilling manhunt. Brother Douglas is an exterminator from Dallas, and he is mistaken early on by a crazed CIA agent for a master terrorist named Jiri Klek. The result is a series of hilarious set pieces, as Douglas simultaneously looks for his brother, dodges assassination attempts, and cures hotels all the way across Central Europe of their silverfish infestations. Yes, there's a good deal of Le Carre here, but also a good deal of Pynchon and Delillo, with not a little of the satirical spirit of Candide thrown in. This is a wholly original and shamelessly entertaining book, the first real post-Cold War novel. I can't wait to read the author's next one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Plotting, July 28, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Wall (Hardcover)

On November 9, 1989, in a shocking turn of events, Stuart Glennick, an American spy, defects to the East. Accompanying Stuart on his flight to the Communists is his German girl friend, Uta Silk. Three hours later, the wall comes tumbling down. Uta changes her mind and returns to the West.

Meanwhile, a fellow spy, Stuart's best friend Nester Cates has been sent in to bring Stuart back at all costs. At the same time that Stuart flees the West, his brother Douglas is in Berlin looking for solace after losing his job and wife. Instead of finding inner peace and harmony, Douglas is mistaken for a terrorist and is in danger from both sides. Still, everything returns to Stuart and how his defection is affecting everyone in his circle.

THE WALL is great historical fiction that brings to life the most dynamic series of events that culminate with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Stuart is a great character, whose motives are clearly shown by author John Marks. ! The impact of his defection on his friends, lover, and sibling is also distinctly spelled out so that readers can understand their deepest feelings. Though there are moments when the novel seems a bit stretched (for instance, the resemblance between Douglas and the terrorist), the dramatization of the fall of the wall and the rest of the East is a brilliant thriller that clarifies what really happened in an exciting way.

Harriet Klausner

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointing, March 20, 2000

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Wall (Paperback)

I was expecting big things from this thriller, set amidst the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent uprisings in Eastern Europe--and found it all rather disappointing in the end. One problem is that there were way too many characters bouncing around all over the place, and while some felt real, far too many others were simply too cardboard for me (especially the main villain Styles, and the spunky young reporter Jodie). Marks does manage to introduce the reader to the major events of those months, and captures the aura fairly well--but at the expense of any kind of plausibility in many of the characters' actions, and certainly at the expense of the weak plot. Although strong on atmosphere, overall comparisons to Greene and LeCarré are way off-track.