Kolymsky Heights

Lionel Davidson died recently. His obituary is appearing in newspapers and online, around the world. No better time than now to go back and reread, or read for the first time, this Master of Thrillers. Start with Kolymsky Heights, then read Menorah Men, on to The Rose of Tibet, and Night of Wenceslas if you can find it. His novels are all different, all unique, and ALL GREAT. He writing is fast paced, occasionally elegant, and often amusing. His characters are memorable, deep, motivated,and unforgettable. Although he wasn't read as much in the US, his works influenced many. Vale, Lionel.

Lionel Davidson may have written this late in his career but this may be his best novel. As usual you are misled through a maze of detail that seem unrelated to the plot but wait for it, it's coming. A big book of adventure that keeps building with the final third requiring a straight through read. Never heard of the author before reading a magazine that mentioned his books and glad I bought it. So were the people who borrowed my copy.

Bought this book long ago at a market stall and was struck by its imaginative power: A friend has read this compelling spy story four times by now. I reread it only once. Having given away my own copy, I have to rely on my memory to entice readers to enjoy this captivating spy novel, which is also a love story. This brilliant novel is about sneaking into Siberia, do key investigations, and getting out again during the Cold War.

Kolyma is one of the coldest regions on earth and hosted many labor camps in the Stalin era. The story is situated in eastern Siberia, some of whose native people migrated millennia ago across the Bering Sea to Alaska and western Canada. The novel's hero Johnny Porter is a Canadian Native Indian with a gift for language, who turns out to be able to communicate with speakers of his ancient ancestors' language. He receives a plea for help from a security agency: the Soviets are doing something very suspicious and dangerous in a super-secret laboratory deep inside the permafrost of Kolyma... And as the song goes, Johnny goes. And how!

It is for readers to enjoy how Johnny Porter infiltrates into the Soviet Union, finds his way to Kolyma, survives there while investigating, and most of all, how he gets out again. Car lovers will enjoy Johnny's lengthy
process of building of his escape vehicle.

Author Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) is an enigma. In the 1960s and 70s he won three Gold Dagger Awards, the top British prize for crime & spy writing. Then, for 16 years, he fell silent. Until he recovered from whatever ailed or troubled him, to write this book, first published in 1994. Alas, by then the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the cold war was old news and his book was cruelly ignored as part of a genre no longer en vogue. Written 10 or 20 years earlier, it would have been a major bestseller. A very enjoyable piece of writing and high on my list of great books that failed to become a bestseller.