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Short book, interesting hook and a chance to read something different? Sure, I will give it a shot.  As you might have guessed, Thirst ties into alcohol:

Masterfully translated from the original Russian by award-winning translator Marian Schwartz, Thirst tells the story of 20-year-old Chechen War veteran Kostya. Maimed beyond recognition by a tank explosion, he spends weeks on end locked inside his apartment, his sole companions the vodka bottles spilling from the refrigerator. But soon Kostya’s comfortable if dysfunctional cocoon is torn open when he receives a visit from his army buddies who are mobilized to locate a missing comrade. Through this search for his missing friend, Kostya is able to find himself.

It is a spare and impressionistic story of a veteran trying to makes sense of his life after having his face and body disfigured in the war in Chechnya.   Hunkered down in his apartment with so much vodka it wont fit in his small refrigerator, Kostya occasional rehabs apartments for the Euro-rich – working alone of course. His interaction is limited to his neighbor calling on him to scare her son into going to bed.

When his buddies call on him to assist in their search for another fellow vet, he ends up meeting up with his estranged father and his young family. These interactions shake him out of his depression and allow him to see the wider world rather than just his internal struggles.We learn of Kostya’s childhood and background through flashbacks which reveal that his father humiliated him and his mother by flirting with young women before leaving for good. His early interest in, and apparent talent with, art is fueled by an alcoholic school director who soon disappears taking the drive to draw with him.  Riding around in an SUV looking for their friend, watching the fallout from his friend’s business deal gone bad, and interacting with his father’s family allows him to deal with these memories and come to terms with his emotions. And of course, he has to make peace with his injury and its impact on his life. Being with people and drawing them seems to give him space to heal.

This was a quick read (my paperback is 112 pages) and it held my attention for the most part.  The cultural aspect of the new Russia and veterans of the Chechen war made it interesting to me. But the writing was uneven and the story as a whole lacked a structure. At times it felt like you were beginning to get a sense of the backstory of Kostya and how he ended up in that armored vehicle but in the end it is just a glimpse and doesn’t quite hang together.  And the drive around and look for their missing friend seems like an almost artificial plot device.  Put together it feels unfinished.

My reaction: hmm, interesting, but didn’t really grab me.

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• A Q&A with Andrei Gelasimov, Author of “Thirst” (omnivoracious.com)

When I was pitched on Black Ghosts by Victor Ostrovsky it seemed like a nice break and a quick entertaining read. That turned out to be true – to a degree – but it lacked the depth and complexity I was looking for.

Black Ghosts gets its name from an underground Russian group of ex-KGB operatives who secretly control large segments of the military and government in the former Soviet Union.

One of the leaders, Peter Ivanovitch Rogov,  manages to escape from prison in Siberia and plots to return Mother Russia to the glory of the Czars – powerful autocratic rule, not the weak corruption of democracy. Allies inside the US are manipulating the government to help him and thus return the money making conflict of the Cold War years.

A former elite US military and intelligence operative gets inadvertently sucked into the battle to stop this group when a friend shows up at his door shot and bleeding – actually a very attractive women shows up at his door and leads Edward to his friend.

As Edward slowly gets pulled in deeper and deeper, and as Rogov’s plan gets closer to completion, a show down is building. Can Edward save Russia and the United States at the same time? Can former enemies and mafia kingpins work with a makeshift army to defeat Rogov?Not surprisingly, the answer is yes (sorry to spoil it for you). Along the way you have some side stories inside the US government, a look into the Russian mafia, a betrayal, and the occasional brooding about the psychological trauma soldiers and spies endure.

Black Ghosts struck me as quintessential airport reading; the type of book you would pick up at the airport because you need something to read on a long flight and forgot to bring anything. A rather mindless espionage thriller – something to occupy your time rather than fully engage with or explore.

It had some interesting plot hooks but otherwise felt more like a paint-by-numbers thriller. Wounded warrior forced into action by loyalty, betrayed by a beautiful women, works with unexpected allies to defeat stereotypical evil bad guy, etc.  It was entertaining as far as it went but nothing that stood out either in the writing or the characters.

It could be that my tastes have simply changed; that I don’t enjoy this type of genre anymore. I think that might play a role but I also think that this is just not a very deep or particularly creative book.

As always, your mileage may vary. If you like Cold War thrillers updated for the post-cold war era and don’t need much literary style or depth you might enjoy this paperback. I found it a quick an easy read but just a little to shallow for my tastes.

Despite my preferecne of reading a character of series in order I decided to read Red Star Rising without having read any of the previous books.

It turned out to be classic cold war spy fiction even though it was set in post war Europe. Here is the plot summary from the dust jacket:

The body of a murdered, tortured Russian has been found in Moscow, which isn’t unusual in the crime-ridden city. What is different is that this corpse is on the lawn of the British embassy.

Eager to prevent an international incident, London dispatches veteran MI5 agent Charlie Muffin to investigate. Charlie is an old hand who recognizes that little has changed in the post–Soviet Union, most definitely not the espionage enmity between Russia, Britain, and America. The search for the identity of the murdered man enmeshes Charlie in what might be the biggest attempted espionage coup of his career.

Being in Moscow has very personal implications for Charlie, too. It provides the opportunity for a re-union with his Russian wife, Natalia, and their young daughter, whom he had to abandon because of a hurried recall to the UK five years earlier. It’s also the chance to persuade the reluctant Natalia, an officer in Russia’s FSB intelligence service, to return with him to London.

In classic spy fiction fashion Charlie is fighting the bad guys, often his superiors and his own demons/past. On top of this you have a constantly shifting set of puzzle pieces that he has to put together.

On a basic level there is the mystery of the dead body. On another level is the internal-politics and security of the embassy. And over it all is the geopolitical maneuvering motivating it all. And if this is not enough Charlie is attempting to put his family back together.

Freemantle does a good job of weaving all of this threads together and keeping the pace moving. Just when you think you have a handle on what is going on the puzzle pieces move and you have to rethink. And it is never clear, to Charlie or the reader, just exactly what Charlie really wants professionally or personaly.

Booklist has a nice description of Charlie and the book:

Alternately cautious and daring, self-critical, pragmatic, and fatalistically idealistic, the maverick Muffin will appeal to fans of John le Carré’s George Smiley and to readers of classic espionage novels. The USSR is now Russia, and the KGB is now the FSB, but this is still a story of telephone booths and old-school spycraft—old-school quality, too.

If I had one complaint it was that the twists and turns at the end threatened to overwhelm the story. It gets rather complicated and convoluted by the end. Freemantle pulls it off but it is a bit much.

That aside, fans of classic espionage fiction will enjoy this version updated to the post-cold war world.

It also has the feel of an indictment of Vladimir Putin‘s Russia, and a castigation of the West’s response, in fiction form. Put it all together and it makes for an interesting read; some of it works very well other aspects less well.

Here is a video trailer for the book:

For the more textual among us here is the blurb:

Finn is a veteran MI6 operative stationed in Moscow. In the guise of an amiable trade secretary, he has penetrated deep into the dangerous labyrinth that is Russia under Vladimir Putin to discover some of its darkest secrets, thanks to a high-level source deep within the Kremlin.

The youngest female colonel in the KGB, Anna is the ambitious daughter of one of the former Soviet Union’s elite espionage families. Charged with helping to make Russia strong again under Putin, she is ordered to spy on Finn and discover the identity of his mole.

At the dawn of the new millennium, these adversaries find themselves brought together by an unexpected love that becomes the only truth they can trust. When Finn uncovers a shocking and ingenious plan—hatched in the depths of the Cold War—to control the European continent and shift the balance of world power, he and Anna are thrust into a deadly plot in which friend and foe wear the same face. With time running out, they will race across Europe and risk every-thing—career, reputation, and even their own lives—to expose the terrifying truth.

For my take see below.

I will be honest, this book seemed disjointed to me at times.  But part of that is the fact that I was reading before bed for however long I could last.  This often meant a chapter a night – not really enough to get fully into the flow of the story.

But I also think this is because the book has three threads Dryden is trying to weave together: 1) the espionage thread which is used as a vehicle for 2) the portrait of a Russia that suffocates the stirrings of democracy and heads back toward autocracy and 3) the love story.

When Dryden is focused on Finn’s obsession with “The Plan” – and Russia’s slide back to autocracy/oligarchy -  the book reads like an intelligent thriller with a strong current events focus. As a first time novelist, Dryden’s prose can be a little flat and heavy handed but the premise of a Russia resorting back to its Cold War ways and threatening Europe is plausible and full of tension.

That Dryden has an “axe to grind” – to use a phrase – just adds some oomph to the story.  And the fact that he knows a great deal about the history and circumstances involved only makes the story better and the real life component more disturbing.

But by using the love story as the structure on which to hang the story Dryden too often highlights the weakest part of the story. In fact, Anna and Finn are not that strong as characters and their love story drags the plot down – or at least it did for me.

Finn is easy to understand as someone obsessed with proving his theory right and showing his superiors that they were wrong to doubt him.  And Anna is a familiar character: talented daughter who follows in her father’s footsteps but to find distance not closeness; and who begins to feel trapped in the world she has chosen.  But you don’t feel the connection or romance between Finn and Anna – it is just presented as fact.

And Anna makes for an odd narrator. As noted above, the sections that deal with Finn’s trade craft and the larger plot surrounding The Plan work very well.  There is a complex history and a convoluted money trail to follow; and the larger meaning behind it all. This is just the Cold War updated.

Anna narrates the story from a safe house of sorts in Germany where she is desperately trying to unravel the mystery because Finn has disappeared.  But her trips to the coffee house or into the secret basement to read through Finn’s journals again just slow the story down.

I also found the subplot surrounding the mole/double agent Mikhail confusing and distracting.

But despite this set-up that doesn’t always work the book begins to pick up pace and ratchet up the tension as Finn and Anna race to unravel the last few clues before either the Russians or the British get wise to their actual work and shut it down. The second half of the story is well paced and exciting.

Unfortunately, just as the story really heats up it comes to a disappointing conclusion. Dryden didn’t seem to know exactly how to bring the espionage and love story plots to a neat conclusion so things rise to a climax and then just end; with a tacked on epilogue.

As the above has probably made clear, I am of mixed opinion on this one.  Parts of the story were actually quite interesting and well done; and the premise is a good one (and the problem of Russia all too real).

But all the moving parts don’t seem to come together.  The love story just doesn’t have the passion that the underlying mystery does and Dryden doesn’t pull off blending the two in my mind.

So, worth reading?  Depends on your tastes I suppose.  The Kirkus review mirrored my feelings best so I will give it the last word:

The intrigue is wonderfully twisty, and Dryden paints a terrifying portrait of Putin’s ruthless Russia, but the romance plot is labored and clumsy, as is much of Anna’s characterization. Terrific when it sticks to spycraft and the intricacies of geopolitics. Not so much when it attempts the intricacies of the heart.