36 Yalta Boulevard (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was the smell that would stay with him when he remembered this moment: grassyes, and flowers..." (more)
Key Phrases: Lieutenant General, Filip Lutz, Bertrand Richter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for 36 Yalta Boulevard and Olen Steinhauer
 

“[Steinhauer’s] people are real, the crimes genuine, and he is telling larger truths about that era, making it unusually accessible.”
---David Halberstam, LA Times

 

“A brainy thriller motored by stylishness and brevity. Steinhauer evokes the baroque, bureaucratic nature of the Ministry without choking his readers on it, and he can render it humorous without being satirical. His characters, too, are subtle and biting.”
---Esquire

“Brano Sev is Steinhauer’s most intriguing hero yet, and that’s saying something….With its shifting perceptions, pervasive paranoia, and truly unpredictable plot, this will be savored by readers of well-crafted espionage ranging from Alan Furst to John le Carré.”
---Booklist (starred review)

 

"Steinhauer is a master at entangling a compelling protagonist in a spellbinding web where each broken thread entraps the character (and the reader) in yet another mystery. This is an imaginative, brilliantly plotted espionage thriller, with finely detailed settings and a protagonist of marvelous complexity. Highly recommended."

--Library Journal (starred review)

“A wonderfully taut tale that is part police procedural, part political thriller, part love story....Steinhauer has created a vivid world in a lost time.”
---Washington Post Book World on The Confession
 
“A mesmerizing and richly atmospheric follow-up to his 2003 debut.” 
---Entertainment Weekly on The Confession
 
“The Confession is a clever reworking of the police procedural: The narrative-within-a-narrative exposes multiple levels of complicity and guilt that make this an affecting, sobering entry in one of the most inventive series around.” 
---Los Angeles Times on The Confession

 

Product Description

Olen Steinhauer’s first two novels, The Bridge of Sighs and The Confession, launched an acclaimed literary crime series set in post--World War II Eastern Europe. Now he takes his dynamic cast of characters into the shadowy political climate of the 1960s.
State Security Officer Brano Sev’s job is to do what his superiors ask, no matter what. Even if that means leaving his post to work the assembly line in a factory, fitting electrical wires into gauges. So when he gets a directive from his old bosses---the intimidating men above him at the Ministry of State Security, collectively known for the address of their headquarters on Yalta Boulevard, a windowless building consisting of blind offices and dark cells---he follows orders.
This time he is to resume his job in State Security and travel to the village of his birth in order to interrogate a potential defector. But when a villager turns up dead shortly after he arrives, Brano is framed for the murder. Again trusting his superiors, he assumes this is part of their plan and allows it to run its course, a decision that leads him into exile in Vienna, where he finally begins to ask questions.
The answers in 36 Yalta Boulevard, Olen Steinhauer’s tour-de-force political thriller, teach Comrade Brano Sev that loyalty to the cause might be the biggest crime of all.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books (July 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312332033
• ISBN-13: 978-0312332037
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,705 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nikita Krushchev meets Phillip Marlowe, October 2, 2007

By	Matthew P. Ward (Greer, SC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The most intriguing thing about this story is that Brano Sev, the Eastern European secret policeman protagonist, actually believes in socialism. Not in the frothing-at-the-mouth, man-the-barricades way, but through a quieter sense of hope. Despite being beaten to a pulp every time he falls into the hands of the country he is serving (the unthinking brutality just gets comical by the end) and numerous chances to escape to another life, Brano goes back to his country and his job in the end.

It's a tribute to Steinhauer's writing, that we can still see Brano's humanity and admire his intelligence despite his being so wrong about the big picture. At the end, Brano admits that the sysytem of which he is a member is corrupt, but it's the corruption he knows. It's a type of national love really, which infects all of his countrymen, especially the exiles who have left it.

The story involves many characters, subplots, and settings. The first two-thirds slowly lay the groundwork, and the last part brings all the threads together in ways you wouldn't have expected. It's a good Marlowian thriller but the story really is about Brano, a man who's both complex and simple.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "A Bridge of Sighs" to "Victory Square", September 13, 2007

By	Marilyn True (Warrensburg, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had never heard of Olen Steinhauer before reading "A Bridge of Sighs", but once I started this book I was compelled to read the remaining four ( Confession, 36 Yalta Boulevard, Liberation Movements, Victory Square). Mr. Steinhauer writes of an unnamed Eastern European country (possibly Roumania) after the second World War; the political changes that take place during the decades following; and the effects these changes have on a group of detectives in the People's Militia. The author has created a vivid picture of the country during this time of turmoil and developed characters that are sometimes sympathetic, occasionally repulsive, but always interesting.

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than Le Carre, July 10, 2009

By	Mark Pastin "shank not" (DC Metro) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: 36 Yalta Boulevard (Paperback)

Mr. Steinhauer is constantly compared to the master John Le Carre. 36 Yalta proves that the student exceeds the master. In a remarkable book, Mr. Steinhauer takes us into the head of the communist party hack who tormented his ealier heroes - and we find a deeply portrayed, honest human being, one we can understand even if we share none of his odd beliefs. For Mr. Le Carre, we are usually looking from the outside in. Here we the world from the inside out. And there are no irrelevant political motives such as those that have driven Mr. Le Carre's recent, politically correct writings. Mr. Steinhauer trusts us to think for ourselves. This one is the rare page turner of great depth. When you put it down at the end, you are simply stunned. A must read.36 Yalta Boulevard