Looking For a Good Book

I don’t typically review a series of books in one posted review, but for a couple of reasons, mainly because these books are so short, I’ve decided to review the entire trilogy in one, three-part review.

Yuri Kozlov is a well-known spy (well-known among the spy organizations worldwide, anyway) as is sometimes known as the “Russian James Bond.”

Lately there have been a number of Russian spies defecting to the West over what they consider to be Putin’s unjust war against Ukraine. But no one – not from the West, nor from Russia – ever expected someone of Kozlov’s renown and status to be among the defectors!

Yuri is not impressed with the people from the CIA who’ve been assigned to be his handlers and he’s convinced it’ll be a cakewalk convincing them of his sincerity. Of course he’s actually on a deep, undercover assignment to find out who in the Russian spy service is the double agent reporting back to the CIA, and to find and kill the highest level agent who ever defected from Russia. But being so deeply undercover, it will be the American agents he must rely on to protect him while other Russian agents may be out to kill him.

This was an fun, short thriller. I liked how topical it was (war with Ukraine), but I wouldn’t go so far as to consider Yuri a Russian ‘James Bond.’ It strikes me that this was a simple literary device to paint a picture of the man. But do we see Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan or …?

The characters tend to be pretty much stock thriller characters (so stock that they are even referred to them as a familiar character) and the story, so far, is very much on the simple side.

But my problem with this is … it’s not a book. At 43 pages, calling it a novella would be extremely generous. But no matter what label you attach to it, it’s not complete. It’s not a complete novel. It’s not a complete novella. It’s not a complete short story.

It is 43 pages of setup, and that’s all.

I know that there are some pretty famous authors who wrote serials (Charles Dickens’ books often appeared in serial form in newspapers), but you really need to make it extremely clear that when you buy this book (that’s right, it costs $1.99 on Amazon as I write this) you are NOT getting a complete story. Referring to is as a “three part journey” is not enough of a warning. You will HAVE to shell out more money until that story is done (three books, in this case).

Since the book is listed and sold separately, I will rate it separately.

Looking for a good book? The Vanishing Man by Alma Katsu is an incomplete short story with stock, cold war spy characters. It’s hard to enjoy by itself because the story is incomplete. You’ll have to invest in a three-story series.

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The Vanishing Man

author: Alma Katsu

series: The Spy Who Vanished #1

publisher: Amazon Original Stories

ISBN: 9781662519772

Kindle Edition, 43 pages

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This (even shorter) story, picks up immediately where the first book left off.

Defecting Russian spy Yuri Kozlov is getting to know his handlers and how best he might turn the tables and handle them. But he’s also developing a soft spot for one particular handler who, he learns, is the daughter of Russia’s highest level defector, and the man whom Kozlov was sent to kill.

Yuri struggles in this story, sent to do a job and wanting to complete his mission as assigned but he can’t help but be moved slightly by the people currently around him.

I think there may be even less story in this volume. This appears to be all about Yuri’s internal conflict and the external forces that are having an effect on him.

This is a great part of a work and author Alma Katsu clearly has some writing chops, but I keep wondering whose decision it was to write three incomplete stories, and sell them separately (I think I just answered that with the word ‘sell’). This could possibly be a good spy novel.

Possibly.

We’re still dealing with stock characters and we’re still in search of a plot so it’s hard to say if this, as a novel would work or not.

Looking for a good book? On Enemy Ground by Alma Katsu is the second book in the Spy Who Vanished series. As a stand-alone, which is how it is sold, it does not work. If this were the only book I happened to pick up, I’d be really, really ticked off.

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On Enemy Ground

author: Alma Katsu

series: The Spy Who Vanished #2

publisher: Amazon Original Stories

ISBN: 9781662519789

Kindle Edition, 35 pages

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Yuri Kozlov, Russia’s most famous spy is defecting to the United States. But as we learned in the previous two books (you HAVE to read them to know what’s going on), Yuri is actually a plant, an order coming directly from Putin himself. There have been a number of defections since the start of the Ukraine war. Yuri needs to find the highest level person ever to defect and assassinate him, and also find out who the mole is inside the Kremlin.

But since his defection he’s been treated with much more respect than he ever expected. Still, he’s a professional and he’s got a job to do and somewhere nearby there’s a Russian handler updating his orders.

After a trip to Jamaica to visit with some U.S. dignitaries, where Yuri convinces one of them to take a photo and post it to social media – even though the CIA warned them all not to do that, Yuri really struggles with his conscience. He has really strong feelings for his handler, Ren, who happens to be the daughter of the man he was sent to kill, and he keeps thinking back to the one instance where he was ordered to kill a woman and her innocent daughter – an assassination that still haunts him.

Finally Yuri admits to himself that he can’t do this anymore. He comes clean to the Americans who’ve been treating him well. His Russian handler seems to have been getting the impression that he might fold and a small team of Russians is sent to kill Yuri, but Yuri and his handlers are ready for them.

Years later and Yuri is enjoying a mostly quiet life, teaching what he knows about Russia and Russian spies to American spies.