- Audio CD
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD; MP3 Una edition (Jun 7 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1455810487
- ISBN-13: 978-1455810482
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 91 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In previous novels, Simmons has cast John Keats as an intergalactic emissary (Hyperion) and Mark Twain as an occult adventurer (Fires in Eden). His new excursion in fictional literary biography?and first nonfantasy since Phases of Gravity (1989)?is a gutsy speculation on Ernest Hemingway's exploits in wartime espionage, much of it apparently based on fact. In 1942, Hemingway petitioned the American embassy for help in establishing a counterintelligence outfit he called "The Crook Factory," designed to investigate Nazi activity in his adopted home of Cuba. Joe Lucas, a dedicated if unimaginative young FBI agent, thinks he has been assigned to humor the well-connected writer but soon discovers that Hemingway and his crew of colorful sycophants have stumbled on a Nazi spy nest abuzz with activity. Someone is channeling information through the island's intelligence underground, all of it implicating a host of historical celebrities. The more deeply Hemingway's team probes, the more Lucas is persuaded that the Crook Factory has been deliberately set up as an expendable military subterfuge. As vividly depicted by Simmons, pre-Communist Cuba is an exotic locale whose volatile wartime intrigues are comparable to those of the cinematic Casablanca. It's the perfect milieu for Hemingway, whose larger-than-life evocation must be accounted one of Simmons's sterling literary achievements. The macho figure he cuts here is the stuff of countless Life magazine photos, and his development as Joe's friend and mentor is handled with intelligence and dignity. No one will mistake the novel's immersions in the numbing, repetitive detail of secret service operations for Papa's own concise prose. But the web of conspiracy Simmons spins, the zesty characters it entangles and its intricate cross-weave of fact and fiction distinguish this celebration of the Hemingway centenary.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This delightfully spry novel offers a fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway, who during the 1930s set up a U.S. government-sanctioned intelligence network, a.k.a. the Crook Factory, in Cuba with a cadre of fishing buddies, waiters, prostitutes, and other unlikely operatives to apprehend Nazi infiltrators. Simmons (The Rise of Endymion, LJ 9/15/97) very cleverly takes one of the actual players, remembered only as Lucas, and morphs him into Joe Lucas, an FBI agent sent by J. Edgar Hoover to keep tabs on Ernesto. The plot quickly evolves into a real page-turning espionage story, complete with corrupt police officials, double agents, secret codes, and multiple murders. Without falling into hero worship, Simmons offers one of the best fictional portraits of Hemingway available. The writer is intelligent and tough but at the same time a hotheaded and reckless amateur. Though Hemingway is the hook, this would be an equally intriguing story without him. Fun reading for both Hemingway aficionados and spy novel enthusiasts.
-?Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
-?Michael Rogers, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
HE FINALLY DID IT ON A SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1961, UP IN Idaho, in a new house which, I suspect, meant little to him, but which had a view up a valley to the high peaks, down the valley to the river, and across the valley to a cemetery where friends were buried. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
HE FINALLY DID IT ON A SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1961, UP IN Idaho, in a new house which, I suspect, meant little to him, but which had a view up a valley to the high peaks, down the valley to the river, and across the valley to a cemetery where friends were buried. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hemingway, Nazis and the FBI,
By Mike V. (San Diego) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Crook Factory, The (Mass Market Paperback)
What's not to like???Fun novel that takes a fictional stab at what Hemingway was doing some of the time while living in Cuba. If you like Simmons other books, beware it's not in his usual genre. If you have an open mind (or, just like good historical fiction with a crime/mystery/spy twist) then you will enjoy this outing. I also highly recommend Darwin's Blade and the Kurtz novels from Mr. Simmons. They are good reads as well.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Such a fine book with such a flaw...,
By T Galazka (no longer NYC, NY USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Crook Factory, The (Mass Market Paperback)
I really liked the novel. It moves FAST, the personae are detailed and lifelike, the settings ring true... The only problem I had was that Simmons decided to go the easy way and poke some fun at Hoover's obsession with Communist spies. The sad fact is that, far from overreacting, the FBI in Hoover's time did nowhere nearly enough to counter that threat. The declassified Soviet and US files are damning enough, and good historical books were already available when Mr. Simmons was writing his novel. I'd recommend "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America" by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and "The Secret World of American Communism (Annals of Communism Series)" by Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes (Contributor), Fridrikh I. Firsov, Timothy D. Sergay (both volumes from Yale Books) to set the record straight.As I said, this is a very good novel of its kind. It just suffers from a perspective defect.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Real Spys Versus Real Men,
By
This review is from: Crook Factory, The (Mass Market Paperback)
Hemingway always liked to present an image of being a 'man's man', and the side of him that acutely observed and recorded those around him and their swirling tide-pool of emotions was normally hidden from view. Simmons, delving deep into the minutia of what is known about the man, managed to catch this ambivalence in this spy-vs-spy novel. Hemingway's braggart, macho face is clearly in evidence, but also much that is deeper: his genuine feelings for his children (and his 'children' were a much larger group than his biological family), his own realistic opinion of both his own and other's writing abilities, his fears and depressions, his charismatic presence, his dominance of almost any group he was part of, his real appreciation of what excellent art is, his total arrogance towards those whom he felt did not meet his standards. Beyond this fine character portrait, we find a plot that seemingly came strictly from the land of make-believe, that is until you look at the documented facts surrounding the creation and operation of Hemingway's contribution to the WWII effort, his self-named Crook Factory. Nominally a strictly amateur counter-espionage group, which should have occupied the attention of the Washington bureaucrats for all of two minutes, is instead shown here to be the focus of not one but at least four professional intelligence-gathering organizations. Simmons weaves a finely complicated tale within the documented facts, some of which paint a very frightening picture of certain American organizations, and which become even more frightening in light of certain recently passed legislation allowing these organizations even more effectively unsupervised power. In Simmons' hands the facts and the fiction meld to become a nice who-is-really-who thriller, a ball of twine that Simmons carefully unravels and knits into shapes that continue to intrigue till the very climax of this work. Simmons' style is a long ways from Hemingway's, normally a pretty basic utilitarian prose that does a decent job of presenting the story, but not exceptional. In a few spots, however, he caught something of Hemingway's inimitable ability to describe far more than just what the objective words on the page relay. These moments are few, though, and in many places I felt he presented too much mind-boggling detail of marginal relevance to the main story, regardless of how well these details are documented. These details in many places somewhat spoil the pacing of this otherwise well-wrought thriller. Simmons also includes an epilogue, just to tie up all the loose ends. As he says himself within it, this is a bad idea. He had a perfectly good finish without the epilogue, and its inclusion merely weakens the overall impact of the work. A good, enthralling read, with some nasty implications for today's world, although perhaps not the absolute top-flight work Simmons has exhibited in such works as Hyperion. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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