Kolymsky Heights

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The love interest (Russian Medical Officer Komarova) is a bit yawn and contrived. Character-wise, a 15 year-old called Ludmilla provides, for me, the most poignant moment in the tale. I’ve never come across a character quite like her in anything else I’ve ever read. Philip Pullman has said of the novel: "The best thriller I've ever read, and I've read plenty. A solidly researched and bone-chilling adventure in a savage setting, with a superb hero." [4] Porter, however, is descended from Canadian Inuits, who remain – physically, ethnically and culturally – virtually identical to their Siberian counterparts, despite the decades-long political rift between the two. That, alongside his linguistic skills – he also has to pass himself off as a Korean at one point – makes him the only spy able to get anywhere near the base without arousing suspicion.

Kolymsky Heights’ may contain the greatest Lionel Davidson’s ‘Kolymsky Heights’ may contain the greatest

Lionel Davidson died on 21 October 2009 in north London after a long illness. Davidson's first wife, the former Fay Jacobs, died in 1988. As significant as … le Carré in bringing a gritty new realism to the thriller.’ ( Sunday Telegraph) Davidson’s prose is very readable (the many typos notwithstanding!), although maybe a little over-involved with some of the many technicalities involved in the caper. Plot - ridiculous, but there is a dread and a horror alluded to early on which I was disappointed was not pursued as a significant plot reveal through the middle part of the book. However, the final phase of the book - Porter’s escape (successful or unsuccessful, I’m not saying) - is some of the most thrilling action I’ve read in a long time! Kolymsky Heights was Davidson's first thriller for 16 years, and he died in 2009 without having produced another. Which is a pity, because one feels if he had produced a few more like this, he really could have been mentioned in the same breath a Le Carré and Deighton.Ok, hold up-it really does pain me to write this review. I don’t like to trash any author on GR or anywhere else. I am not a writer myself; I have tried and spinning a good yarn is no easy task. Like I said, I was excited for this book, and after the prologue, I was even more excited. So what happened?

Kolymsky Heights - Wikipedia

His second novel The Rose of Tibet (1962) was equally well received. A Long Way to Shiloh (1966) won Davidson his second Gold Dagger, and he achieved a third with The Chelsea Murders (1978). The Chelsea Murders was also adapted for television as part of Thames TV's Armchair Thriller series in 1981. [3] I've never read a thriller that so successfully transported me to a hitherto unimagined place. After a few racy globe-trotting chapters in which Porter is painstakingly inserted into his undercover role, we enter the dark, icy world of the Siberian winter. And it never gives up its grip until the end. Welcome to the second in my series of favourite books which I’ll be reviewing over the summer. Lionel Davidson’s Kolymsky Heightsis one those books which I, although I hestitate to say it, would put in the ‘best you’ve never heard of’ category. I know that’s a cliché but it’s how it was described to me when I was first given it to read in 2008, the person who gave it me probably had the same conversation with the person who gave it to them and so forth. After reading Kolymsky Heights the first time I didn’t disagree Els americans (on anglesos; occidentals, vaja) volen enviar-hi un espia perquè hi ha un comunicat d'algú de dins de la base que demana ajuda (o filtra informació, tampoc no ho recordo). I've read a couple of other thrillers by Lionel Davidson and found them entertaining. I honestly gave Kolymsky Heights a good try, even got over half way through it. But I just could not finish it. That does not happen very often, I will tell you.

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This was Davidson’s final novel, and he tells the tale of a Russian research laboratory in the vast wastes of Siberia. Scientists at Tcherny Vodi have discovered something both terrible, and amazing. A message is secretly sent to the West, and the intelligence services send a Native Canadian – the talented Johnny Porter – to retrieve the secret. Porter is Special Forces trained and multilingual. His ethnicity enables him to pass off as almost anyone other than a white European, and the first part of his odyssey has him posing as a Korean sailor aboard a tramp ship scuttling between God-forsaken ports north of Siberia. He infects himself with a Yellow Fever-like virus on purpose, knowing that he will have to be medically evacuated from the ship to the nearest hospital with isolation facilities.

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson - AbeBooks Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson - AbeBooks

Well, I saw 'Kolymsky Heights' on a list of the best 25 thrillers of the past few years, read a couple blurbs by other authors about it (Charles Cumming, what have you done???) and thought I'd be in for a superior reading experience. Not! Note to self: don't rely on author's blurbs about other authors! The synopsis itself is fairly simple, a single man must enter a heavily restricted part Russia, then enter an even more heavily restricted research facility, extract the required information and return safely to the west. It’s a classic quest story and Kolymsky Heights has been compared to John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, I personally think it’s closer to Greenmantle, the second of Buchan’s Richard Hannay novels than it is to The Thirty-Nine Steps. Instead of Richard Hannay as the civilian thrown into the deep end, in Kolymsky Heights we have Johnny Porter, a native Canadian Indian who has a gift for learning indigenous languages. He’s also not unexpectedly very resourceful and in a step too far he’s a bit like James Bond when it comes to seducing women. MY beef instead is with the nature of the secret. And frankly, it could have been ANYTHING. pretty much anything. The secret is entirely, as far as I can see, irrelevant to the story. But it still is part of the story, and it's this: that they've bred talking chimpanzees. Ya wot, mate. Hugely thrilling, brilliantly written, perfect … I didn’t want this book to end.’ (Anthony Horowitz) Characters - none of them really believable. Or even likeable, I felt. They mostly play third or fourth fiddle to Johnny P in any case. But they are not poorly-drawn enough, and he is not unlikeable enough, to crash the novel. It’s not really that he’s unlikeable exactly; it’s more that I felt I never knew him. He was too busy being other diverse characters for the reader to get to know the real him.This is a 2015 re-publication of a solid thriller from the immediate post-Cold War period with a slightly breathless introduction by the children's fantasy writer Philip Pullman.