Tripping the Ballerina

Rating:
Summary: How the war in Afghanistan started
Review: Interesting book set in the first year of the Soviets' Afghanistan incursion. Time and again, the hero, Mels, bumps into veterans of the Afghanistan war (complaining about the quality of Uzbek troops) or conscripts on the way to Kandahar. The streets of Moscow and Leningrad are full of soldiers and the second hand shops full of goods brought back by diplomats expelled since the invasion. We find out soon enough that Mels is embroiled in a secret KGB plot (apparently based on a true story) using the cover of the Moscow Olympics. He finds out the details of the Kabul coup that triggered the whole crisis. I found it fascinating--well written and certainly timely.

Rating:
Summary: Thrilling--and educational, too!
Review: The level of detail in this novel astonishes me. I felt like I was in Leningrad in 1980! At times it reads more like an ethnographic study than a standard thriller. And yet the action moves at just the right pace, the characters avoid stereotyping, their dialogue always seems convincing and the plot never seems predictable or stale. It is, apparently, based on a true incident that happened in the twilight years of the communist system. If I have one criticism it is that the book feels a little like a "novelized" screenplay (no doubt with John Malkovitch as the mysterious soft-spoken KGB general and Nicholas Cage as Mels Katz, the hero). Altogether an impressive debut novel.