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Istanbul: Křižovatka Cest (2013)

by Joseph Kanon(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Fortuna Libri

review 1: Excellent..and I am far from an "espionage thriller" fan.This novel transcends the genre,is rich with character, atmosphere(post WWII Istanbul),tense and nail-biting intrigue, and ,for me, timely and troubling moral dilemmas with no simple answers. Leon Bauer is an American businessman, employed by Reynolds tobacco, who has settled in exotic,sensual,neutral Istanbul, to rescue his Jewish wife,Anna, from the malignant black hole that becomes the Holocaust.When her family in Germany is unable to escape,Anna , with Leon's growing interest, joins the underground network of "cargo movers,' those who help Jews gain safe passage from Europe thru Istanbul to Palestine. The ships of passage that are bartered and begged for, thru bribery and influence-peddling, are wrecks;the inev... moreitable happens and a vessel goes down,drowning hundreds of refugees, helpless children literally slipping thru Anna's hands into the sea. She becomes unhinged, plunging into a catatonic state,leaving Leon adrift,widower without a body to bury. He finds a slender thread of connection to life by continuing the pick-up and delivery of human "packages' and discovers he is drawn to the adrenaline rush.What's more, he's good at it and no one suspects him..until one of his "packages" turns out to be an infamous war criminal,trying to escape the Russians so he can sell his out nefarious colleagues to the Americans.Suddenly, the game turns complex and deadly(Leon commits a murder in self-defense);to save himself from Turkish "justice" by American intervention, he is saddled with keeping alive the kind of man who slaughtered his wife's family. This is just the beginning of an incrementally disturbing series of choices that confound Leon's moral compass.An illicit affair, the viper-like snooping of the Turkish secret police,the unrelenting scheming of the Russians (seeking Cold War advantage), the easy treachery of a culture built on looking the other way when a palm is greased, the presence of a traitor in the American consulate(which solicits Leon's services,further trapping him in the game of shifting alliances), and the unfolding relationship between Leon and his "butcher"....each event is entangled with the next and suddenly Leon is a man without a truth.What happens when the only choices are wrong choices..which card do you play? Kanon gives us no easy answers and deftly draws a roadmap to Hell. An unsettling journey, which deservedly can be called "haunting."
review 2: Warning: there is a description of a Holocaust atrocity in this book. Personally I tend to avoid books with details on atrocities. If you can get past that the book is strong on atmosphere replicating in print and in Istanbul the ambiance of the movie Casablanca. It’s post WWII and spy vs. spy is undergoing changing allegiances. Leone, an occasional hired hand of the US consulate conducts clandestine operations. He is asked to pick up and deliver freight.” The freight is a Nazi with information of interest to the US. The intrigue begins and gets complicated but easy to follow. The writing style is a few notches below literary and is at times melodramatic. Occasionally it skirts the edge of pulp fiction before scampering back to first rate descriptions of Istanbul. The ending is a bit drawn out with a surprise that many readers will surmise prior to its revelation. All in all the book is not a bad rendering of the first freeze of the cold war in a colorful setting. less

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