From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. As in
The Company (2002), a long and serious chronicle of the CIA, Littell provides plenty of inside intelligence info in his superb new thriller, but he adds a decidedly comic spin. A female CIA executive looks frighteningly like Fred Astaire, while a former top agent works as a PI out of a former pool parlor above a nondescript Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn. The detective's name seems to be Martin Odum, but "Fred Astaire" calls him Dante, and he also goes by Lincoln Dittmann, the name of a Civil War enthusiast whose cartons of memorabilia sit unopened in Martin's office. Is Martin Odum himself a "legend"—a fake identity dreamed up in the dark imagination of the CIA? Because he needs the work, Martin agrees to help an old Russian KGB agent find his Israeli daughter's husband and persuade the man to give her a "get"—a divorce decree required by religious law. The husband has been pretending he's Jewish to cover up his link to a Russian criminal called the Oligarkh. As the bodies of his friends and clients begin to pile up, Odum searches for answers about not only the missing husband but also himself. Wonderful writing and a great sense of fun make this another winner.
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This is one instance when the speed of the narration makes a difference. In this complex novel a retired CIA operative turned detective is hired by a Russian-Jewish woman to find her Hassidic brother-in-law who has disappeared in Israel. A slower narration would have made the production easier to follow. That's because the story gets even more complicated: The detective has multiple personalities. Each has different tastes in almost everything, especially wine, women, and song. So if you can keep up with Grover Gardner's marathon read and still remember who's on first, his baritone voice will give you a pleasant, if hectic, experience. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.