Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Archangel (original 1998; edition 1998)by Robert Harris
Work InformationArchangel by Robert Harris (1998)
Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This story gives us a version (probably true) of Russia where Communism has not proved to be ideal that had been wished for. People are stuck in horrendous living conditions, families are fractured, and the secrets aer buried deep and the paranoia has been built on every neighbour and family member ratting you out to the state.[return][return]Meanwhile, a historian gets caught up (along with an american reporter) in the search for a notebook, and one of the people who claims to have been present the night Stalin died. Naturally, the Russian state would like to prevent the disclosure of anything that could detract from Stalin's legacy no reviews | add a review
Is contained inHas the adaptationIs abridged inAwards
Archangel tells the story of four days in the life of Fluke Kelso, a dissipated, middle-aged former Oxford historian who is in Moscow to attend a conference on newly opened Soviet archives. One night Kelso is visited in his hotel room by an old NKVD officer, a former bodyguard of the secret police chief, Lavrentii Beria. The old man claims to have been at Stalin's dacha on the night Stalin had his fatal stroke, and to have helped Beria steal the dictator's private papers, among them a notebook. Kelso decides to use his last morning in Moscow to check out the old man's story. But what starts as an idle enquiry in the Lenin Library soon turns into a murderous chase across night-time Moscow and up to northern Russia - to the vast forest near the White Sea resort of Archangel, where the final secret of Josef Stalin has been hidden for almost half a century No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
Here anyway is another demonstration of why Harris leads the field in terms of highly literate, well researched, absolutely compelling novels. And I must stress the research. Every detail feels right from the bakelite telephones to the tortuous paranoid world of Kremlin politics. And whoever thought Stalin’s speeches could be put to such brilliant dramatic effect? What a display. ( )