Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding work from Robert Harris
Review: In this outstanding work from Robert Harris (his best book after Fatherland) Fluke Kelso is a middle-aged scholar of Soviet Communism, who specializes in the dark history os Stalin. He seeks the rumored notebook that Stalin kept in his final years of life. He meets a former NKVD guard who claims that he was at Stalin's deathbed and that the notebook is real and exists. Before he can get more details, the guard disappears and Kelso finds himself on a search to find this notebook, which contains some of history's most darkest secrets. Thus he finds himself chased by those who do not want the notebook and its secrets to be ever found. Superb.
Rating: 
Summary: Great writing
Review: This was truly a novel I enjoyed. Sharon Shinn writes in a pleasant manner, and her stories are so unbelieveable, that they become believable. The trilogy itself is exeptional, but in its own way, Archangel sets the pace, and outdoes the following stories. What makes all these stories so intiguing, is the use of technology, and possible outcome of the human race. I thoroughly enjoyed the fantasy world of Samaria, and as always, her books are a welcomed break from everyday work and stress. I recommend these book to any avid sci-fi/fantasy reader, who wishes to escape into a much more interesting reality, then our own humdrum world. And while I DO consider them sci-fi/fantasy, the writing is every bit as good as something you'd find on the bestseller list-say, Da Vinci Code or Bark of the Dogwood. But Harris truly has a knack for drawing the reader in, and that can't be denied. Kudos to the author.
Rating:
Summary: Can Fluke Kelso Uncover Josef Stalin's Secret?
Review: I have not read either ENIGMA or FATHERLAND, the author's two previous books; thus I can offer no comparisons of this novel to those highly praised volumes of historical fiction. However, this suspenseful, action filled historical thriller indicatives the impressive breadth of his storytelling abilities. ARCHANGEL is a very thoughtful, well constructed book which I highly recommend for readers who appreciate complex plots and are willing to allow the author the time necessary to provide the background details required to create an aura of realism. If the reader accepts the premise on which this novel is based, the historical speculations at the crux of the story all logically follow and there is sufficient character development to bring the main actors to life.
The book begins with a relatively brief prologue, entitled "Rapava's Story", in which Papu Rapava, one of Josef Stalin's bodyguards at the time of his death in 1953, relates a story regarding the existence of a secret personal notebook of Stalin covered in a black oilskin which had never been discovered subsequent to his death. The fascinated listener is Fluke Kelso, an historian who had never lived up to the early promise displayed by his book exhibiting the courage to critize Commmunism and the horrors perpetuated by Stalin's regime during a period "when every other useful idiot in academia was screching for detente". Part One of the story then takes place in Moscow, and is centered around a mid-1990's symposium which Kelso is attending with other Sovietologists to discuss the historical archives of Communism being cataloged and released by the Russian government following the break up of the Soviet Union. The complicated nature of that period, the introduction to freedom so foreign to the Russian poplace, the promise of economic change and the inevitable corrution which accompanied such change, and the political crosscurrents (especially the yearning of the Stalinists for a return to the "order" of the past) all are wonderfully captured and form the backstory for this intriguing tale. In this section the reader is also introduced to three of the key supporting characters in this alternative history. First, Zanaida Rapava, Papu's estranged daughter and a thoroughly moden Russian woman. Second, Vladimir Mamantov, a Commmunist party member who Kelso first met after he led a failed coup against Prsident Gorbachev. Last, O'Brian, a reporter for a satellite television news service who won't let go of what he believes could be the biggest story of his career.
The notebook eventually points to the fact that the answer to the mystery of Stalin's obsession lies in the city of ARCHANGEL in northern Russia. Thus, the action in the second and concluding part of the story builds to a climax in this remote, frozen area bordering on the arctic circle. While by this time some readers might have guessed the central element of the plot and the secret of the notebook, the eventual outcome is impossible to deduce until the very last page. Meanwhile, we are treated to wonderful details of the desolation of this area of Russia and fascinating insights into the character of Stalin.
This book includes wonderful historical detail, and Beria, Malenkov and other figures of the period are cleverly interwoven into the fabric of the story. In addition, the detailed touches add to the realism of the story, such as Zinaida's refusal to "trust the banks, either-- thieving alchemists, the lot of them, who would take your precious dollars and conjure them into rubles, turn gold into base metal". The mood of the city of Moscow and a Russia in transition are captured very well, and this setting provides the perfect backdrop for Fluke Kelso's search for personal and professional vindication through the dicovery of "something true and big and defintive -- a piece of history that would explain why things had happened as they did". Finally, in some ways this section is about Kelso's realization of how many elements of the story have in some way been touched by the power of love in its many manifestations.
I highly recommend this book, and only want to provide a few minor caveats. First, as you might expect there is a reasonable amount of violence and torture which is occasionally described in some detail althogh never gratuituosly; there is also a great deal of profanity which revolves around the almost continual use of one particular expression. My only substantive criticism is that the conclusion, while totally satisfactory in keeping with the remainder of the story, is in some ways so shocking and abrupt that unless the author is planning a sequel, he should have written a prologue to bring closure to his readers regarding the few questions which remain unanswered, especially regarding its impact upon Kelso.
Tucker Andersen
Rating:
Summary: Great adventure in post-Soviet Russia
Review: What if Stalin tried to carry a secret to his grave--but Lavrenti Beria (head of Soviet secret police and fellow homicidal maniac) got wind of it? What if the evidence of that secret were in a notebook buried somewhere in Moscow? Why would such a secret be so dangerous that people start ending up dead over it in post-Soviet Russia? That's what an American historian who specializes in the Soviet Union wants to know after an old retired KGB agent pays him a visit at his Moscow hotel room. The historian follows up some leads, acquiring an unwanted assistant in the form of an eager cable news reporter. They end up heading north to Archangel, a city on Russia's Arctic coastline, to chase the story down.
The adventure is a good one, with believable characters acting on believable motivations throughout the book. I had a hard time putting it down.
Rating:
Summary: A fun historical thriller
Review: Archangel, by Robert Harris, focuses on a notebook left behind by the evil Joseph Stalin. Historian Kelso and reporter O'Brien and Stalin-loving Manammatov want this notebook. This novel is better than Fatherland, which asked what would life be like if Germany won WWII. Kelso is told a story about the night Stalin died by a former guard of Stalins. This sets Kelso on a quest to find an infamous notebook that Stalin carried with him during all the final days. While set in modern Russia, the novel is filled with segments of history on Stalin which enlighten us about the type of person he was as well as in a way set up the ending. The conclusion of the novel happens a-matter-of-factly, with no great surprise or relevation on the part of the author. This is a good novel with the writing somewhat shifty making me wonder if I missed something. But there is nothin hidden in this novel of a few characters on the quest for a long-buried secret. The premise of the secret is somewhat foolish yet still entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Is Stalinism Really Dead?
Review: The search for Stalin's secret notebook brings a British historian, who is definitely not politically correct, to a modern-day Russia struggling to come to terms with its Capitalistic reforms. There the historian finds something more shocking than even he could have imagined hidden away in a far-flung northern outpost of Russia. Perhaps Stalinism is not dead after all. This tightly-written novel will keep you on the edge of your seat right up to the end of the book; I highly recommend it.
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