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Archive 17 (2012)

by Sam Eastland(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0345525736 (ISBN13: 9780345525734)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Bantam

series

Inspector Pekkala

review 1: A significant improvement on the previous books in the series.The story is more interesting and flows well, the characters are more rounded (and the historical figures actually act more like they should), the historical setting covers a much well less known aspect of Russian history than the death of the royal family or the importance of the T-34. Main problem is still the main characters lack of a personality, especially in a situation which should be filled with thoughts that tear him in multiple directions. After the regime he is loyal to is knocked down and he is tortured and sent off to a gulag for 9 years, he is oddly unphased when in the very first few pages of this book Stalin informs him that he will be going back. Stalin then tells him of how a vast number of Pol... moreish officers have been murdered, Pekkala imagines it in gritty detail, then just wanders off and carries on with his task without a second thought to it. The story seems to go that he loves his country, but he never once questions what his country or boss is doing, just acknowledges what happens and carries on like a mindless zombie. There are also seemingly endless flashbacks to needlessly introduce the original distant meeting of Pekkala and seemingly everyone else that he comes across in the book.
review 2: Book 3 in the Pekkala series, published as Siberian Red in the UK. Good stuff - at least as good as book 2, if not more so. Based on one of the more unusual episodes of the Russian Revolution and civil war - the eastward journey of the Czech legion, carrying gold from the Imperial reserves - this sees Pekkala going undercover in the very same gulag camp he had been a prisoner in. Looking foward to getting book 4 - this series gets better and better. less

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