trilby001 's review for:

Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer

4.0

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I liked this carefully plotted and exciting spy/detective story even better than the other novel by Steinhauer that I've read, "The Confession"(of Ferenc Kolyeszar). Steinhauer has jettisoned the shopworn device of the discovered manuscript and instead tells the story via chapters devoted to different characters' points of view. The place is the same, an unnamed Soviet satellite nation, but the period has been moved up several decades, to the late '60s-early '70s. The atmosphere isn't quite so noir, but the action is more exciting. There's never a dull moment as the spies and homicide detectives rush toward the surprising conclusion of their investigations. One thing I didn't like: one of the characters mentioning the Kolyeszar novel by title to another character, as if we're supposed to believe that this "confession" actually existed. This bit of anti-metafiction is sadly out of place in a thriller/mystery, where the reader needs to follow the illusion without distraction.