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Summary: McCarthyism and "The Prodigal Spy"
Review: "The Prodigal Spy" isn't a sequel to "Los Alamos" but its roots are certainly in the after-story of the bomb. I was fascinated by Oppenheimer and how he became a victim of the postwar anti-communist hysteria (a panic partly fueled by our dismay at losing exclusive control of the bomb), that period we now call the McCarthy Era. But McCarthy was only one of many players and "McCarthyism" a great deal more than just grandstanding with reckless accusations. Its most recent incarnation, "sexual McCarthyism" is a misleading journalist's label. Except for a few obvious similarities-- moral sanctimoniousness, political opportunism-- the events of 1998 aren't remotely comparable, and the label has the odd effect of trivializing the original McCarthyism (which may have been many things-- even, at times, ludicrous-- but never trivial). The postwar Red Scare took a serious, legitimate concern with Soviet policies of aggression (and their longstanding fondness for espionage) and threw it into a cauldron with nativism, class resentment, anti-semitism, union bashing, and a host of other familiar ills. The witches' brew that ensued was poisonous and the hunts it prompted became the longest and most sustained attack on civil liberties we have ever known. What is so striking, fifty years later, is the scale of the witch-hunts. Between '46 and '57, the House Un-American Activities Committee alone held over 200 public hearings, calling over 3000 witnesses. And that was just HUAC, not McCarthy's Senate committee, nor the many state committees and various security boards. Anyone was fair game-- teachers, scientists, government officials, ordinary working people. During the 1950s HUAC used its files to become a giant personnel clearing house, furnishing data on some 60,000 people to employers. But these are just numbers-- I was interested in the personal fallout of all this, the people who got caught up in the net. It seemed to me a time when history itself became a kind of crime story--but what if the crime happened to you? Then, to complicate matters, I wondered what might have happened if they had caught a spy, not a sympathizer or political victim, but an actual spy. And what if the spy changed his mind? Stories about defectors always end with their getting on a boat or a plane. But what happens afterwards? What about the people, the families they leave behind? So my character, Nick, is a boy whose father defects, one of those unintended victims for whom history does become a crime, affecting his whole life. In "The Prodigal Spy" he not only has to solve a murder, but the larger crime of what happened to his family-- who did it, how did it happen? Of course, an historical crime rarely has one villain-- there were a lot of hands stirring that witches' pot-- and rarely offers the neat solution of fiction, so what he discovers is a lot more complicated than simply whodunit, but my hope is that it also makes for a richer story. Or, to be precise, a richer background story. "The Prodigal Spy" is an entertainment, not history-- there is already a large and still often contentious literature on the period-- and my interest is in the characters as specific individuals, not representative figures. I may have started with an interest in the McCarthy era, but I ended up with a novel about fathers and sons, and the curious emotional mix of this father and this son. Like everyone else, they're products of their time, so there are questions about loyalty and the personal consequences of ideology, but it's still the personal story of one family--a father, a mother, a son-- and how they live through their history. What fascinates me-- it was the underlying story of "Los Alamos" too-- is how good people do the right things for supposedly the right reasons and yet create these appalling, complicated legacies.
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Summary: The Prodigal Spy
Review: "The Prodigal Spy", by Joseph Kanon. The author talks about a little kid, Nick, who was trying the best to help his father, Wolter Kotlar. A lot people were accusing him from being a communist. It's a Wonderful book full of mystery, suprises and loving between father and son, husband and wife. I recomment this book to every each of you. Joseph had done a great job to evoke the feeling from a son toward his father. It's an Excellent book.
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Summary: divided loyalties
Review: an historical novel of the not so distant past. the red scare with hoover setting up his own police state in an ironic emulation of the ostensible enemy. a family is torn apart by the then prevailing zeitgeist. prague behind the iron curtain is skillfully brought to light.
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Summary: Does Mr. Kanon know any REAL women?
Review: As a big fan of spy fiction, I was drawn to this title and the synopsis on the cover. I even read it to the end, which is something I don't always have the patience for these days. The protagonist, Nick, is believable for the most part. And most of the male characters were interesting and complex. The women, however, were irritating, shallow, and apparently blind. I hated the "love interest", Molly. Nick's mother was an aging party girl for whom I had little compassion. Anna was a tool, as was Ms. Cochrane, the dead girl. The depiction of the times, the witch hunts of the 50's, gives one pause--will we let this happen again? The descriptions of the European countryside were well done--I was "there"--but were they accurate? Molly's facility for getting around should have been suspect to Nick, but he never seemed to catch on. Are men that stupid? On the whole, a pretty good read if you don't analyze it too closely.
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Summary: A TETRIS of a Spy Book
Review: Do you like the early Tom Clancy -- Hunt for Red October? I liked the book and the movie. Both fiction with accurate data. Do you like to play Tetris? Often one can see the vital piece, yet one has to match three or four satellite pieces before one can match the partially hidden vital piece. If so, then this book is the one for you. The McCarthy era was one I lived through, and this book gives the persona of the peripheal players in the same half hidden mode. It even seems to have input from the Verona cable intercepts. Like a good Sherlock Holmes or Edgar Alan Poe, the players are only half hidden. The fun is not in guessing which is whom, the fun is in seeing the sweater unravel. The portrait of Hoover is fantastic. Disclaimer, one of the Cold War spies hidden in this book was a Andrew Duggan. He is not a relative to the best of my family's knowledge. The book's use of a gay undersecretary of state's name for the Congressional witch-hunter is delightful, since the former was under suspicion by Hoover during this era, and McCarthy himself was gay. I liked Los Alamos very much also, since the factoids were never twisted. Consider also that Y2K problems affected our current intelligence gathering and processing capabilities just when the Algerians were putting their plot in action, or do you believe that the interception of the car at the Canadian border was fortuitous?
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Summary: The Prodigal Spy
Review: Excellent writing ruined by an all too predictable ending. If one does not figure out who "Silver" is by page 220, go back to the fundamentals of mysteries and read "The Hardy Boys" series. However, the last three pages was an unexpected twist I had not counted on. The only reason I granted two stars was because the begining was so intriguing and wonderfully structured. I really felt the pain the young Nick went through. Over all, no go.
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Summary: Well-written: What do you want?
Review: Good spy story, great setting, sense of place, but above all, wonderful, thoughtful turns of phrase that make you read whole paragraphs out loud to the person next to you. I wish novels came stamped with a code that indicated that pleasure was within.
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Summary: First rate - reminded me of early LeCarre
Review: Half-way through this book, I wasn't sure just where it was going, which was nice for a change. And then the ending (Silver's identity) began to telegraph itself and I was disappointed, only to be surprised again at the end. I particularly liked the writing style. This took me back to some of the early John LeCarre books, although much easier to follow!
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Summary: Far superior to "Los Alamos"
Review: I am a big fan of historical fiction. When "Los Alamos" came out, I eagerly bought it. I enjoyed the story but I thought that it felt overly long, and that Kanon spent too much time setting the mood and too little time advancing the story. Kanon does his usual good job in setting the mood in this book as well, but the story advances far more surely this time. The story never bogs down in the details. I also enjoyed that I never was quite sure what was going to happen next. I agree that the identity of Silver was too obvious, but it doesn't seen to hurt the novel because I was never quite sure what Nick was going to do at the endgame. Overall, this is well worth reading for fans of this genre, or for mystery fans in general.
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Summary: Predictable outcome with lost potential
Review: I feel a need to warn those readers who don't read past the first few reviews to take your time before ordering this book. While Kanon's first book, Los Alamos, may not have won prizes for literary writing, it was intelligent, creative and instructive. The Prodigal Spy had so much potential. The story could have happened, the characters could have been real. But the final result: hackneyed dialogue, unbelievable characters, and an ending I guessed after the first chapter. The best parts: the lasting pain of the McCarthy hearings, a reminder of FBI abuses, and the excellent descriptions of eastern Europe. Keep trying, Mr. Kanon. I'm still intrigued enough with your innate talents and insights to try the next one.
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