Here is another marvelous work from Kanon. This author often focuses his thrillers on a specific location, and does so again here. In the past, it has been Los Alamos, Berlin, Hollywood, and Istanbul, among others. Here it is Moscow. And it is about two brothers, Simon Weeks, and his older brother Frank.

Following World War II, the brothers, who were close, worked in parallel espionage tracks for the Unite States, Frank in an active role for the CIA and Simon at a desk job in the State Department. Then, one day in 1949, Frank vanished, only to turn up in Moscow. He had betrayed his country for a new ideology. And Simon recalled how a friendly Frank had often in the past milked him for information, asking what was going on at State.

The novel opens in 1961, when Simon, now working for a book publisher, journeys to Moscow because his brother has written a memoir about his double life in the United States. Simon’s company has decided that the book is going to be a best seller, and has agreed to publish it. And who better to edit the manuscript than Frank’s brother on its staff?

In the memoir, Frank describes how his political thinking shifted course after volunteering in Spain in the 1930s, how he began passing on information to the Soviet Union, even betraying Latvian activists, and how he began plotting his escape. It is not clear why the Soviets are allowing him to publish this memoir abroad, but the assumption is that it is because his story shines a positive light on Soviet espionage operations.

The book opens with Simon’s arrival in Moscow, and the reader experiences not only the brothers’ reunion from Simon’s viewpoint, but also the mixed emotions Simon has about the meeting. For he both loved his brother and felt betrayed, remembering how Frank used to pump him for State Department information. Yet he also was looking forward to being with him again, and in Moscow he finds him still friendly and gregarious.

But gradually he begins to wonder if his brother has an ulterior motive for either publishing the manuscript abroad or for choosing Simon’s own company to do so. In any event, Simon is determined to do a professional edit of the manuscript, which means getting Frank to offer deeper explanations for his actions and also to fill in potential gaps.

In passing, we would note that Kanon does not include here any of those editing sessions, with their give and take, even though it might offer deeper insights into the brothers and help us understand their relationship, both past and present. One suspects Kanon does not do so because, a former editor himself, he deemed such conversations, especially in depth, not appropriate for a thriller—and would, in fact, bore the reader.

Instead, the novel focuses on Frank’s motive in bringing his brother to Moscow. In a surprise twist. Frank tells Simon that he wants to defect again, back to the United States. He is disillusioned by life in Moscow, as is his wife Joanna, and hates that the distrusting Soviets have assigned a man to watch him constantly. His demand is that in exchange for returning to the States and providing Soviet secrets to the Americans, he and his wife be given a new identity back home.

Kanon will follow this revelation with additional twists, one after another, often reversing the reader’s expectations but all typical of a superior espionage thriller.

The next twist occurs when Simon deduces that his brother does not really intend to defect but is planning to betray the Americans in order to enhance his own reputation in Moscow. And so he makes a plan to foil his brother. Except, in implementing his own plan Simon forgets certain details that put at risk his reversal of Frank’s plan. Whereupon, Frank steps in and helps him achieve his objective—and then does not. At the very end, in fact, the author introduces an ironic twist that seems simply one too much. And prompts me to wonder why authors so often fall in love with irony. Why do they think it offers an ideal punch line to end a story? Instead of trying to come up with an ending that becomes a final character revelation.

But the effectiveness of this novel depends on more than its twists. It also depends on the portrait of Moscow itself and on the characters these two brothers encounter there. The first is Joanna Weeks, Frank’s wife, who followed him to Moscow long ago. She is a former flame of Simon’s, and now Frank has used that relationship to intrigue his brother into helping his defection—by saying she, too, is unhappy in Moscow and this will enable her to leave. While Simon himself, filled with memories of that past relationship with Joanna, must tread carefully, because she does not yet know of any plan that will enable her to leave.

Another major character is Boris, a KGB man assigned to watch over Frank and protect Soviet interests. He is almost a comic figure, as he continually keeps his distance, but he is always there as a reminder that every movement, every conversation by Frank and those he meets is being carefully monitored. He is a constant reminder, Frank says, that he himself has no freedom in this country he has fled to. Boris will also play an important role in one of the novel’s final twists.

Significant roles are also played by Tom McPherson, a Look photographer and Hal Lehman, a UPI reporter. Tom serves to convey messages or information back and forth between the Weeks brothers and the American embassy, and Hal even participates in the eventual escape plan. They are able to do this because they are free to move about and talk to people on both sides of the ideological curtain. Of course, they also recall the suspicions of the press that were often expressed by the Russians even then. But, at the same time, they help to expand the horizon of this tale, reflecting not only the interest in this story back home but also the potential repercussions these characters will face once they arrive home.

In sum, I now eagerly await the next Kanon thriller. What city will he choose? What intrigues, what human relationships, what double dealings will he explore next? (January, 2019)