Rating: 
Summary: The Glorious Return of the Spy Thriller
Review: You know, when the Cold War ended, I thought that the spy thriller had likewise come to the end of the line. What would Le Carré and his mates write about now? What could they write about.Le Carré has moved on, but Robert Littell remains, and with The Company he has firmly established himself master of the genre. This is an awesome book, a spy thriller of the old school, with moles and Joes, cutouts and dead-drops, plots and counterplots. There are the usual colourful characters - the Sorcerer in the seedy sleazy alleys of post-war Berlin is worth the price of the book alone - and thrilling if not romantic situations. It goes on for a satisfying length, a good solid read, and there are meaty plots and subplots and subsubplots to give the reader a generous fill as the story follows through the early days of the CIA and the freezing of the Cold War, past Hungary and Cuba, a long episode in Afghanistan and ultimately to the White House of Boris Yeltsin, where generations meet in a blazing conclusion. There are plot twists and red herrings, tension and drama as the key players work against each other to uncover a high-level mole. I won't give the game away, but if you keep your wits about you right from the beginning, you should be able to spot the first seeds that will sprout shoots of doubt and ultimately grow to bear fruit many many years later. The plotting (and I use the word advisedly) in this book is of a high level. It flows naturally, never forced, always thrusting the story along. Little details echo the moods and motivations of the characters, tieing in to one another and weaving a multi-stranded tapestry that gives the book so much of its satisfying flavour. It is hard to say what I enjoyed most, but perhaps the scenes that most impressed me were inside the Ronald Reagan White House, where the various political motivations of Washington institutions were dealt with in rambling code phrases in a sort of real-like movie shot in the mind of the President. Scary, haunting stuff. But I guess I'm rambling too. Make no mistake. This novel is big, but it is no meandering time-filler. It is tightly written for all its size, and it will keep you turning just one more page until you get to the end. It is one of those rare books where you get to the end and want to start at the beginning again to read it again in a new light. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Action ficton or the CIA exposed?
Review: Is it a spy thriller or a veiled history of the CIA mixing real players with substitute and made up characters? Littell should have picked one or the other and cut the book in half. In the fiction story three Yale roommates go into the intelligence service in 1950. Jack McAuliffe and his pal Leo Kritzky go to the CIA while Yevgeny Alexandrovich Tspin, son of a Russian undersecretary to the UN, is pulled into the KGB. Unfortunately, these characters are merely painted into scenes from the Cold War. The substance it would take to make them believable is missing from Littell's journey through four decades of espionage. As for the expose, the controversial James Jesus Angleton is squarely in the author's crosshairs. If you don't know much about him (I didn't), do a Google search and read a couple of articles to set the scene. The details of Littell's fictional narrative are drawn from similar facts reshuffled enough to satisfy the publisher's lawyers. Even more interesting is the hard-drinking character of the Sorcerer, Harvey Toritti. Like the real William Harvey, he was a holdover from the OSS and the Agency's chief in Berlin in the early 50s. He also told Angleton that Philby was a spy long before he accepted it, was called America's James Bond by JFK and was the link to hitman Johnny Roselli and the Chicago Mob. Angleton manipulates and bumbles while Toritti swaggers through crisis after crisis until they're put out to pasture in the early 70s. The question is what's real and what isn't? Thirty-plus years and hundreds of pages later the three Yale roomies retake center stage. The final act runs from the early 80s through '91 and the fall of Gorbachov. Jack cals on his long retired mentor Toritti who stirs up an improbable series of events to stop the coup they know is coming. It happens, of course, with Littell using this part of his saga to float the notion that Putin grew out of the dark unofficial operations that drew together CIA, KGB, Mossad and some well financed free lancers. Littell did succeed in arousing enough of my curiosity to go back and review some of the history he touched on and some that he didn't. I doubt if I'll dig too deep into it, however. "The Company" pretty much wore me out.
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate spy novel
Review: At first, I though 1200 pages (I have the UK paperback) was a bit long. Very long. But once I got into this book, I couldn't put it down. There are dozens of characters, and the plot follows the great events of the second half of the 20th century, with a drive that is rare in spy novels. Littell is a master at creating atmosphere, and his characters stick with you like chewing gum from a hot sidewalk. I read this in just a few days, in spite of its length, staying up far too late to do so. I'm looking forward to his next book.
Rating:
Summary: An Epic Historical Novel Of The CIA - And A Must Read!!
Review: Robert Littell has managed to write a densely plotted history of the Cold War and the CIA, spanning 45 years and almost 900 pages, without including a single boring moment. On the contrary, as one of the other reviewers noted, I was sorry to have the book end so soon. Littell manages his storylines, and characters so expertly that I had no difficulty keeping track of the events, the agents - single, double and triple, and all the political and undercover operations, the often deadly twists and turns, intrigues and espionage that actually happened in real life during the 20th century. If anything, the novel, which was impeccably researched, brought back the entire history of the Cold War to me, in many cases reminding me of the news events of my childhood. "The Company" begins in 1947, when President Harry Truman established the Central Intelligence Agency. The main plot is centered on the personal and professional lives of three young CIA recruits, Jack McAuliffe, E. Winstrom Ebbitt III, (Ebby), and Leo Kritzky. The three men's various assignments with The Company take the reader through the Hungarian Insurrection, the building of the Berlin Wall, the behind the scenes reality of the plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and the fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, the Suez Canal crisis, the US and Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the aborted putsch again Mikhail Gorbachev, and all the other events that made up the period in world history known as the Cold War. The novel weaves a fine tapestry of historic and fictional characters who participated in real life events which shaped today's world. The book almost reads like nonfiction. Figures like Harvey Torriti, code named "the Sorcerer," the hard drinking cowboy, who is the super effective head of Berlin base at the beginning of the Cold War, populate the novel. There are the equally effective KGB, M-16 and Israeli Mossad counterparts, all running agents in the field, all manufacturing disinformation and managing top secrets. The KGB operative, Yevgeny Tsipin and Soviet spymaster Starik (the Old Man), also play major roles in this saga. The author captures the camaraderie and esprit de corps of the men and women in the CIA - their discipline, dark humor, and high expectations, of themselves and each other. Mr. Littell's introduction of actual historical figures really heightens the book's interest. The defection of the British moles, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess to the Soviet Union is recounted in the most chilling manner. Littrell raises the suspense level considerably when he shows the close and trusting friendship between Philby and the CIA's historic counterespionage chief, James Jesus Angleton. Harold Wilson, Eisenhower, President John Kennedy and his brother Bobby, Kruschev, Ronald Reagan, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Henry Kissinger, William F. Buckley, G. Gordon Liddy, and even the upwardly mobile Vladmir Putin have roles in this epic historical novel, as do all the former CIA directors. Frank Sinatra, Judith Exner, Marilyn Monroe, Sam Giancana and other mob figures also have bit parts. Littell's book is absolutely riveting. He has taken most of the events straight from history and his narrative is just as exciting as being an actual eye witness. His characters are absolutely 3-dimensional, and very easy to care about. His writing style may not be as elegant as John LeCarre's but it certainly carries the reader along at a good clip. And "The Company" is almost impossible to put down. Littell likens the world of espionage to that of "Alice In Wonderland." Once the jump down the rabbit hole is made, nothing is ever the same - everything turns upside down.
JANA
Rating:
Summary: A MASTERPIECE FOR LOVERS OF SPY FICTION
Review: "The Company" is simply the best spy novel that I have ever read.
As an alumnus of the CIA and an unabashed lover of spy fiction
in all of its forms,I also tend to be a tough critic. However,
Littell has created a masterpiece.He skillfully blends real-life
and fictional characters and weaves a story based around real events -- the Soviet invasion of Hungary,the Bay of Pigs,the
Able Archer incident that could have led to World War III,and
the attempted coup against Gorbachev that finally put an end to the Soviet Union. This approach easily could have gone awry.Since
most of the actual events and real-life characters are well-known,the book could have either been boring or incredible.
Instead,it is a compelling story in which the reader cares about all of the characters and gets completely caught up in even the
familiar events of the past.Littell treats all of his characters
-- even the "villains" -- relatively sympathetically,which makes
the whole novel more interesting and compelling.Most important,he
demostrates that he is a masterful story teller.I was genuinely
sad to finish this book.I would have gladly read another 900 pages!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best and most all encompassing spy novels ever
Review: This remarkable book captures the history of the CIA during the cold war from it's early days in post W.W.II Berlin to the downfall of the Gorbachev government. The Yugoslavian revolution, the Kim Philby affair, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, as well as the Iran Contra scandal are also covered in some detail. These separate episodes are kept together by a group of CIA operatives that we get to know quite well. As the time frame of the story is in decades, the characters are multigenerational. As is appropriate, we do not get to know these CIA agents intimately but get to know them more by their deeds and their dialogue. Nonetheless, the characters are suffused with a great deal of humanity. We deal with loss of love, death, honor, as well as, what compels an individual to betray their country.
THE COMPANY is one of the longest and biggest books I have ever read. It is also one of the best. If there weren't so many other books to read on my shelves, I am not sure I would have ever wanted it to end. It has been nominated by the CWA for multiple daggers including the Gold Dagger and the Steel Dagger. This bears testimony for the quality of the book in that it is so long, yet the judges were able and willing to get through it. One would be hard pressed to find a better and more all encompassing spy novel than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Intriguing Work
Review: I truly enjoyed _The Company_, which was the first ~1,000 page novel that I absolutely could not put down. Littell did a brilliant job at combining an intriguing plot with historical fact. Admittedly, I was entertained by Clancy's _Rainbow Six_, yet, this work was far deeper and engaging. Unlike Clancy's style, personality and psychology overshadow fancy technological gadgetry, which is likely more indicative of how the most prestigious government agency operates. I am now a fan of the Littell spy novel. Keep them coming.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost Brilliant
Review: I genuinely enjoyed reading this lengthy tome. It's quite a book, and the insertion of fictional characters and possible or probable events into real history helped give you the feeling that you were reading the real inside workings of the CIA. It also cleverly laid the blame for some CIA foibles at the feet of fictional characters, enabling the author to explore those events without risking the embarassment of any real people. Unfortunately, two of the most pivotal historical American events that took place during my lifetime were whizzed past in this novel: the Viet Nam war and the assassination of John Kennedy. I guess some things are still too hot to touch. I have one other minor complaint: the White House conversations involving former president Reagan rang false. I watched Reagan on television for eight years, and the figures and patterns of speech assigned to him in the novel didn't fit the reality I remember. He may really have been befuddled, as he is portrayed here, but he continued to speak publicly with confidence and authority even after the assassination attempt. I would have imagined him speaking just as well in an important meeting like the one imagined in the book. For fans of the spy novel, cold war era, I would highly recommend this book. In addition, conspiracy buffs and fans of James Ellroy's American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand will probably enjoy this.
Rating: 
Summary: Lacks depth for its length
Review: After reading the reviews on Amazon, I was anxious to read The Company. Now having read it, I am logging on to report my dissatisfaction. For a book of this length and the time it takes from your life to read it, it does not deliver. Although it covers major events in US history since WWII, it offers only the most sketchy analysis. Character development is terrible. Save your money and your time.
Rating:
Summary: Without a doubt, the best of its kind
Review: I bought this book after having read its raving review in The Economist. Without a doubt, this is the best spy-novel I've ever experienced-they simply do not get any better. The book has it all, from masterfully developed characters over the course of their careers, to an utterly engaging storyline, to a bit of history surrounding such events as the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and the Bay of Pigs. Robert Littell's terrific ability to mix fictional characters and events with those of real-life make the story that much more believable. I was kept on the edge of my seat for 900 pages, with the only letdown occurring at the end of the book, when there was simply no more to read.
|
