The One with Archangel

108. Title & Author: Archangel by Robert Harris (373 pages)

Genre: Fiction--Mystery & Suspense

Completed: 5 August 2009

Summary & Review:

A Russian man approaches historian "Fluke" Kelso and tells him that he knows where the long-lost personal journal of Russia's most infamous ruler, J.V. Stalin, lies hidden, and that some will do anything to keep it that way. With the help of an American journalist named O'Brian, Kelso finds the book whose shocking contents lead him to the extreme northern edge of Russia and back into the dark past of the Soviet era. In a cabin nestled deep in the woods, Stalin's heir has lived waiting for his moment to restore Russia to its rightful place as a world superpower.

Harris never disappoints me. I was actually a little reluctant to read this one because I had rented a BBC made-for-TV-movie version of it that was a major let down. I saw the movie at RedBox, recognized that it was based on a book by Harris and that it starred Daniel Craig (James Bond was in it! It had to be good!), so I got it. For being based on one of Harris' novels and starring the best James Bond ever, the movie was amazingly so-so. Thus, I didn't have very high expectations for the actual book. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it. Like always, Harris' knack for setting and atmosphere showed through and really created an air of mystery and intrigue throughout the novel.

Here was a passage that I found interesting: "The drumming of the tires was hypnotic and Kelso's thoughts were random, disconnected. He wondered what O'Brian would have been like in a real war, one in which he actually had to fight rather than just take pictures. Then he wondered what he would have been like. Most of the men he knew asked themselves that question, as if never having fought somehow made them incomplete--left a hole in their lives where a war should have been.

"Was it possible that this absence of war--marvelous though it was and so forth: that went without saying--was it possible that it has trivialized people? Because everything was so bloody trivial now, wasn't it? This was the Trivial Age. Politics was trivial. What people worried about was trivial--mortgages and pensions and the dangers of passive smoking...he shot a look at O'Brian--is that what we've been reduced to, worrying about passive smoking, when our parents and grandparents had to worry about being shot or bombed?" (221-2)

Rating: 8.0