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Untraceable general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
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Our Assessment:
B : quite solid thriller, but a grim picture See our review for fuller assessment.
From the Reviews: - Return to top of the page - The complete review's Review:
Untraceable begins with the assassination of a man once part of the Soviet secretive services who had defected and been settled in the West with a new identity.
The assassination is of the ripped-from-the-headlines sort -- a discreet poisoning in a public place, so quick no one except the victim notices anything out of the ordinary.
Death is not instantaneous, however -- and the man manages to gurgle out a few words: "Ambulance ... police ... murder ... not drunk ... poison ... I was poisoned".
Kalitin was not a faithful Communist. he knew the clichés and rituals well, and had a party membership card -- without it he would not have risen beyond laboratory head. Kalitin was attracted by the paradoxical freedom-in-prison that the Island offered in a land of ideologized, dogmatically mediated science.Lebedev is particularly good on the late Soviet period of decline, mirrored on the Island (though the catastrophe at Chernobyl does prove a convenient means for Kalitin to get rid of one of his rivals), as well as then the quickly failing Russian after-state. It is telling -- and nicely damning -- that Kalitin only defects after the collapse of the old regime. We learn less of Shershnev's past, but more of his present; he is a typical, dutiful officer -- serving the state, regardless of the master. The Russian government he works for differs little, at the level of his operations, from the previous Soviet one -- but it seems all the same to him. Like Kalitin, he merely blindly does what he's very good at -- morally reprehensible though it too is. The thriller-part of Untraceable is decent, with quite good suspense, especially as Shershnev and his partner close in, but the professional Shershnev is understandably annoyed about how elaborate the plan they're supposed to follow has been made: He was unhappy from the start with the travel plan imposed by the bosses and the cover story they provided. He would have done it fast, in one day. Fly in, complete the op, fly out. That's how the agents from the neighbors took out Vyrin.What follows is a veritable comedy of errors, as a whole parade of small things go wrong, seemingly every damn step of the way. Shershnev is fairly unflappable, but it sure feels -- a bit too much ... -- like the gods and fate are conspiring against the mission at every turn. (And since the approach is so elaborate, there are a lot of turns.) Another defector, who plays a prominent role as things begin to come to a head and then shares his own story -- fascinating in and of itself -- adds an interesting final twist to the whole novel with his role in everything that happened, both in setting things in motion at the start of all this and then seeing them through. Untraceable is not so much an indictment of the Soviet and then its Russian-successor regimes -- though they are certainly presented as reprehensible, Lebedev takes it pretty much as an obvious given that nothing better can be expected of them -- as of the morally void citizens they produce(d). Both Kalitin and Shershnev are very good at what they do, and driven to do it -- but what they do is beyond contempt. Lebedev shows them as human in his rich portraits -- but human in the worst way, their essential humanity almost entirely carved out; it makes for a somber novel, reflecting a very dark worldview. It all works quite well, though in its breadth -- especially Kalitin's backstory -- can feel a bit stretched thin, something compounded by the constant back and forth between the storylines of hunters and hunted. Once Shershnev starts closing in, the tensions certainly rises -- but Lebedev really does layer on those minor mishaps thick, to the extent that they distract from the story; all in all it makes for a slightly uneven mix of thriller and character-portraits Lebedev nearly pulls it all off, but not quite; still, Untraceable is a solid thriller, with some decent thriller-twists, as well as a disturbing exposé of a morally bankrupt society and its progeny -- all the more disturbing because Lebedev sees the rot move seamlessly from Soviet to successor regimes, and its characters unable to take what second chances they are offered but rather continuing in their ugly set ways.. - M.A.Orthofer, 20 January 2021 - Return to top of the page - Untraceable:
- Return to top of the page - Russian author Sergei Lebedev (Сергей Лебедев) was born in 1981. - Return to top of the page -
© 2021 the complete review
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