The Defection of A.j. Lewinter: A Novel of Duplicity - Hardcover

Littell, Robert

 
9781585673476: The Defection of A.j. Lewinter: A Novel of Duplicity
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1585673471 ISBN 13: 9781585673476
Verlag: Harry N. Abrams, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

This is Littell at the top of his form, constructing a tale of espionage and counterespionage that reveals the dirty tricks and dangerous secrets concerning the subjects he knows intimately - The CIA and American history, past and present.

At the center of Littell's plot is an elite plan, so secret and so dangerous that its existence is known only to a tiny group of specialists within the CIA headquarters. There is virtually no paper trail - but, somehow, the plan has sprung a leak. The plotters most urgently trace it - or face deadly consequences. Meanwhile, at work elsewhere on another highly sensitive project for "the Company" is an operative known as "the Weeder"--a man obsessed with American history and one of its heroes. When the Weeder's and Washington's clandestine world collide, the present faces the past and disturbing moral choices are weighed against a shining patriotic dream. What is the truth? Whose truth should be revealed?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Littell is the author of fourteen novels, published in twelve languages around the world. They include The October Circle, Mother Russia, The Amateur (which was made into a feature film), The Defection of A. J Lewinter, An Agent in Place, The Visiting Professor and Walking Back the Cat. Littell is a former Newsweek journalist. He currently lives in France.

Rezensionen

The reissue of this 1973 Cold War gem comes on the heels of Littell's recent hardcover thriller The Company. Set in the early 1970s, the spy thriller-cum-black comedy begins when A.J. Lewinter, an eccentric American engineer specializing in nose cones for ballistic missiles, decides to defect to the Soviet Union. Such a high-level defection is unprecedented, and each side suspects the other of something fishy. A hilarious contest ensues as they try to outconnive each other. On the American side is a coldly libidinous intelligence agent named Diamond (when a mistress asks him what he would have done if she hadn't passed a security background check, he says, "I would have taken you to bed-but I wouldn't have talked to you"). His KGB analogue is the nervous Pogodin (self-described as "one-quarter Marxist, one-quarter humanist, and one-half bureaucrat"), who knows too well the consequences of any mistake. The book paints a bleak view of both sides of the Cold War divide: the socialist dream has given way to a police state plagued by chronic food shortages and ruled by an elite oligarchy that gets the few decent cars and apartments in Moscow, while on democracy's home front, race riots and antiwar protests multiply. Concise, smart and funny, this novel turns Cold War spy cliches on their head. Though the ambiguous ending no longer terrifies, this book still packs a punch and seems prescient to boot. Those who only know Littell's more recent works should enjoy this fast, fun trip into the past.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Verlag
Harry N. Abrams
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1585673471
ISBN 13 
9781585673476
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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