Kolymsky Heights

Rating:
Summary: Not your average spy book.
Review: I'd like to think this is the kind of spy book Umberto Eco would write. Well-researched, plausible plot. This is not James Bond. Instead, the reader is draw into a facinating puzzle: how does somebody sneak into a top secret military base in Siberia? And, how do you get out? Johnny Porter is an unforgetable character and the scenery and action is crisply told. I'm looking forward to Davidson's other books

Rating:
Summary: excellent thriller non-traditional hero
Review: Imagine an indian, intellectual, language specialist, anthropologist sent on a mission to infiltrate on contact the head of trhe most secure facility in the world - frozen Siberia.

I was fortunate to find this book on a discount rack for $2.97. I took a small chance was pleasantly surprised with the quality of Davidsons writing.

The story is inteligent, rich with detail, thrilling and beleivable carried out by an action hero who coulc never be played by Arnold S in a movie version. He is real guy a beleiveable guy in an incredible situation where he has to rely on his intelligence and wits to survive.

Bravo Davidson and I will look forward to reading more exploits of Porter. Tell me where I can find info on that fabulous Bobik!

Rating:
Summary: Well written, interesting spy-type thriller
Review: Johnny Porter may not be James Bond, but he's cut from the same cloth. He's a professor of languages with a flair for picking up new ones and on top of that he's a Canadian indian. When a top-secret Siberian installation must be infiltrated the only one who can do so is one who looks and talks like a native, and who has enough knowledge to understand what he's going to see. Johnny Porter is the man chosen for the job.

I found this book very interesting. Johnny Porter is a complex character who never takes anything for granted. This book leads you through the planning for the infiltration, the infiltration itself, and the escape. It's meticulously done from start to finish, and most of it is very believable. But it's not a dry book by any means. Porter and the other characters come alive in the book. My only problem was with the big secret that Porter is supposed to bring out of the installation. It seemed a bit less than earth-shaking.

I'd recommend this book. Davidson is head-and-shoulders above many of the spy/thriller writers writing today.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Enjoyable
Review: While certainly not a classic in any sense, this is a well-written, highly entertaining thriller. Some may find the episodic nature irritating--England, Canada, Japan, the Northern Passage, Siberia--but I personally loved it. I know nothing of Siberia, and while I suspect that the descriptions of it here are, ahem, somewhat romaticized, they certainly *are* fascinating, at least for me. The descriptions of the other locations, especially those of shipboard life on a tramp steamer, are also well-done and interesting. And of course Johnny Porter, for all his supposed emotionlessness, is a great character, full of suppressed rage (at least to me).

Davidson is a wonderful writer, the story moves along well, and the final chase scene across Siberia is, for me, almost worth the book by itself. The small touches of irony that Davidson adds (a Jewish writer lovingly mentioning the highly non-kosher meals that Porter eats, for example, or the obvious point made by the damage done to Porter at the end and how it relates to what he was trying to get out of Siberia) make the book enjoyable on second reading as well. I think thriller lovers will really enjoy this book. It is nothing at all like LeCarre; it's more like what Crichton would write if he was a much better artist with the language.