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Summary: A View from Moscow, Russia
Review: Archangel is one of not so many books available today, where author really understands what's going on in today's Russia, gives his interpretation about the history and its impact on today and it is really interesting to read about the events in Moscow living in Moscow in less than 1 km. from the Beria mansion. The other great book that should be mentioned in this context is "Snow Wolf" by Glenn Meade that also covers the last days of Stalin.
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Summary: Another Great Read!
Review: This book is great because it makes you think about his subject. Harris poses the question: Who is the greatest villian of the twentieth century and provides a convincing answer. Like Enigma and Fatherland, these are not ideas easily dismissed.
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Summary: Quick Paced Intelligent Thriller
Review: As a lover of history, I found this book to be quite disturbing (in a good sense). It is fast paced (I finished it in two nights)and offers the reader a good look into the past as well as the present while being wrapped around a scary fictional scenerio. The author does a great job of introducing the story and leading you through the twists and turns of a tortured modern Russia that refuses to let go of its communist, dictatorial past. Again this book comes to a disturbing sequence of events (one that is probably not out of the question in today's Russia) that will leave you both highly satisfied in the book and deeply disturbed at the attitudes of Russia.
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Summary: A good read at the beach if nothing else
Review: The text which starts out good enough and keeps your attention throughout, disappoints at the end with a predictable close that leaves you colder then a visit to the Russian North. The plausible and interesting twists unwind right before your eyes, leaving you wondering if your time would have been better spent counting the grains of sand under your beach chair. If you haven't read "Gorky Park" or any of its sequels, they are better examples of this genre and worth the time on the beach.
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Summary: As genre books go, this is excellent
Review: Let's separate books like this, spy/political thriller/what-if books, from literature in general. For instance, this is not "The Reader" by Berhard Schlink, nor is it "Enduring Love." What it is is another outlandish thriller in the same vein as "Fatherland," another Harris novel.The real difficulty in these types of books, as far as this reader is concerned, is keeping the mystery moving, not cheating the reader, and not letting us down at the end. It's very difficult to pull that off, but Harris does it as well as any other writer since John Le Carre. Other reviewers have complained about aspects of this book like its outlandish suppositions, but that's the whole point. And I enjoyed the book all the way through, though I do confess to the occasional "skim."
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Summary: The return of Frankenstein
Review: Archangel is a two-part novel. First one gives a fine if bleak picture of Russia today, where everything is for sale, if only for survival sake, much to the chagrin of the sellers. This part is quite entertaining, with well-defined characters (those puffy academics) and atmosphere to boot. The second part of the novel-which should deliver the punch and is only able to deliver embarassed laughters-fails, and Lord does it fails, to convince the reader. Now imagine a new Stalin, looking, talking, frowning, grinning remarkably like the original one, a man who has lived all his life in the remotest of places, mimicking dialectics by having learned by heart his old master's speeches and writings, still able to pick off with an old gun the best of a small contingent of Red Army attack troops... The fact that Stalin's return were to be welcomed again by some segment of the population of modern Russia is not in question, he sure would be, as Hitler would be, as slavery would be, there is always those who regret the tyrant or the tyranny, what is in question here is the conditions in which this new Frankenstein is created, those are ex-cru-ci-a-ting-ly unbelievable. The novel falls apart real bad at the end. Read the novel's first part, it is very good stuff indeed; stop reading when Kelso and O'Brian takes off for Archangel. Then go buy some other book.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: Robert Harris has definately proved himself to be among the top writers in the business. He intriges you with facts pertaining to the setting of the story. The information used in this book was well researched. Fiction is twisted in with the interesting facts of Russian history and Josef Stalin. There are many things very pleasing in this book. It is suspenseful, informative, and exciting. The suspense keeps you guessing what will happen next throughout the book. He uses foreshadowing with a twist to it. Never do you know for sure what will happen next. This book is very informative. It gives facts of Josef Stalin mixed with a little bit of fiction. He gives the readers a feel for what Russia was really like under Josef Stalin's rule. Throughout the book the question what-if is asked. Excitement is another element the book has. There is a lot of conflicts that has you racing back and forth wondering what will happen. Once the climax is reached the excitement level really rises. The action makes you want to keep reading. The end of the book is also great. This is definately a book to buy if you like excitement and mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: Turgid, Contrived and Boiring
Review: Having enjoyed Mr.Harris's imaginative and finely-observed "Fatherland" I came to this present work with high expectations (indeed I reserved it for light holiday reading in a remote part of Thailand). It was a major disappointment to find that this new novel is turgid and contrived. It doesn't help that it is burdened with a principal character (one hesitates to say "hero") who is that most hackneyed cliché of the modern thriller, in print or on celluloid, the dishevelled and hard-drinking womaniser. The writer's familiarity with modern Moscow is milked for every incidental detail possible and the linkages back to late Stalinist time are laboured to say the least. By the hundredth page I gave up in sheer boredom, totally uninterested in the further plot development or in the outcome. Can this be the same novel I read such rave reviews of? Thank Heavens I had other reading material with me on my holiday!
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Summary: A fast- paced thriller, that never ceases to shock...
Review: When the historian fluke Kelso learns of the existence of a notebook belonging to Josef Stalin, he is unstoppable in his conquest to find the book seemingly without regard to the omnipresent danger that Russia still embodies. It is surely one of the most exciting books ever written. Harris' brilliant characterisation, and chilling descriptions of a dying Russia, bring to life a crescendo of tension when added to the rivetting, and constantly meandering plot. I have never read a book so quickly.
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Summary: Not an episode from XFiles but the real Russia
Review: Life in Moscow "is, was, will be" brutal and harsh. Harris has got his descriptions of Russians longing for the good old Stalinist days dead on. You have to live there like I did to believe it. You think Harris' crazy, paranoid Stalinist monster living in the tundra is hard to believe? It's not any harder to believe than Russia's party history or current political situation, where Duma deputies are murdered regularly. Stalin's son is a "metaphor" that embodies (get it?) the lingering phlegm of Russia's evil past. You think Russians wouldn't rise en masse to slobber over Stalin's son? Then you've been tucked comfy under your Western bed covers reading novels too long. Harris did not have to invent much. He described the bars, prostitution, brutality, duplicity, and misery to a T. He even managed to mention that compassionless excrescence, the eXile, which exudes the stench of the worst aspects of Russian amorality and Western expat cynicism. Russian life has always been brutal, and they blame the West. The West brought them the invasions of the Swedes, the Poles, the French, the Germans, the Turks. Sad thing is the Russians managed to fight these invaders off. As a result, what they were left with was a society that was bled and brutalized -- but victorious. They may not have decent housing or food, but they do know how to identify, repell, and destroy an enemy. Harris captured this emotional reality. Read the book.
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