At the start of the 1989 uprising in Romania, CIA analyst Bill Hefflin—a disillusioned Romanian expat—arrives in Bucharest at the insistence of his KGB asset, code-named Boris. As Hefflin becomes embroiled in an uprising that turns into a brutal revolution, nothing is as it seems, including the search for his childhood love, which has taken on mythical proportions.
With the bloody events unfolding at blinding speed, Hefflin realizes the revolution is manipulated by outside forces, including his own CIA and Boris—the puppeteer who seems to be pulling all the strings of Hefflin’s life.
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I love espionage / spy thrillers and this one is right up there with some of my favourite authors.
It has been a while since I first read this and its sister book, but both still resonate. It is the story of a naive young CIA analyst caught up in a game played by those higher up for their own ends. A man, whose own life is shrouded in mystery and who is far from being honest with those around him, who is thrust into a world where identity is a commodity, loyalty questionable, corruption pervasive, and conspiracies abound.
The writing is slick, engaging, and ready to send you hither and thither during the years of revolution in Ceausescus' Romania of the 1980s. What fully immerses the reader in the narrative is the author's ability to posit parallels from his own early life into the text, giving such a sense of realism.
A great first book,which I followed immediately with the second - The Bucharest Legacy.
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