![]() ![]() I wanted to set this story in a time when it was still possible for ideologues to really believe in this cause.” “The reason this one is set in 1961 is that I wanted it to be at the ‘high summer’ of the Soviet Union, before it descended into sclerotic paralysis. “The last book, Leaving Berlin, was about the beginnings of the Cold War,” says Kanon from home in New York City. The novel picks up in Moscow circa 1961, a time that Kanon chose for very specific reasons. Ousted from the agency, Simon carves out a career as a book publisher, a trade that comes into play when Frank wants to publish his memoir of life as a secret agent. Recruited into the nascent Central Intelligence Agency by “Wild Bill” Donovan, the brothers’ paths diverge in 1949 when Frank is exposed as a Communist spy and flees to Moscow. The novel is an intimate and twisty story of two brothers, Frank and Simon Weeks, who have chosen very different paths. In our starred review, Kirkus says of Defectors, “.not since Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy has there been a family of spooks to rival this one.” In an age when America’s intelligence services aren’t always portrayed in the best light, Joseph Kanon’s new novel about the Cold War seems starkly elegant by comparison. ![]()
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