Holiday Goodies From The Master Storyteller

After all infiltrating the impenetrable Iron Curtain was the most dangerous thing in the pre-Cold War days.

Master storyteller Frederick Forsyth who gave us classics such as The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File too briefly flirted with the Iraq episode in his The Fist of God He also tried new adversaries in the shape of the Libyans, the Irish etc in his previous novel, The Deceiver. Perhaps wisely he returns to the Russians in his latest offering , Icon.

The year is 1999. Russian economy is in tatters and the country is in the grip of utter destitution. People are dying of malnutrition in the provinces. The Russian President Josef Cherkassov has repeated the mistakes of Boris Yeltsin. If Yeltsins military adventure into Chechenya was ill-advised, Cherkassovs manoeuvre into Siberia which was threatening to secede, has been a disaster. The Siberians just gain more autonomy and Russia is plunged into a huge economic crisis. All Western aid has been withdrawn. A tired Cherkassov has a heart attack and dies.

 

Presidential elections are imminent and the new messiah for the Russians is Igor V Komarov, leader of the ultra right wing party, the UPF (Union of Patriotic Forces). After five years of Gorbachev reforms, five years of Yeltsin, and a brief courtship with Crypto Communists, the Russian people look to the charismatic leader for salvation.

A skillful and passionate orator, Komarov is literally an icon for the Russian masses. As former head of the British Secret Service, Sir Nigel Irvine puts it in a nutshell: All nations need something, some person or symbol, to which they can cleave, which can give a disparate mass of varied people a sense of identity and thus of unity. Komarov provides that. However, like Hitler, he is seriously flawed and few know this.

Komarovs grandiose ambition is to build Russia into a major nuclear power. Along the way he also plans to annihilate Chechens, Jews and all ethnic minorities in Russia. He pens his thoughts in a secret document, which unfortunately for him is stolen by an old cleaner and falls into British hands. The Black Manifesto, as the document is referred to, causes grave alarm in London and Washington. Komarov is almost certain to be elected as the next President. How can they stop his onward march?

Forsyth has tried an unusual tack in the book. Part One of the book shuttles between the present and the past. It describes the events of 1999 the theft of the Black Manifesto and how it lands with the British. Interspersed in between are events as far back as 1980, tracing the career of CIA agent Jason Monk. The American successfully controls four spies in the USSR until they are betrayed by a traitor in the CIA. Initially it is a bit disorienting as the book jumps between the past and the present. However after a bit one gets used to it.

Part Two of the book is where the real action begins. Monk, who has been fired by the CIA and is living in retirement, comes back from the cold and is sent to Moscow to curb Komarov. But he runs into deep danger. Ex-KGB man, the malevolent Col Grishin, who is responsible for the death of Monks four agents has now become Komarovs right hand man. Within no time he gets to know of Monks presence in the Russian capital and mounts a major manhunt. From here it is heady stuff, replete with the standard formula of successful spy fiction disguises, close shaves, throwing off tails etc etc.

Of course, as in all spy novels, the good guys do triumph in the end. Russia is saved and all is well that ends well. However the tale lies in the telling and Forsyth has lost none of his old touch. If you are planning a holiday, be sure to pack Icon for an entertaining read.

Icon

Frederick Forsyth

Corgi/Distributed in India by IBD

Rs 182.35/541 pages