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. Exceptional offbeat minimalist thriller, with an unlikely hero -- a "Native Canadian" linguistic anthropologist! (Actually, I think the proper term is "First Nations".) Sensationally good. Cleverly conceived and brilliantly executed. One of the great thrillers of the last century.' Charles Cumming 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.

Kolymsky Heights - Lionel Davidson - Google Books

Davidson wrote a number of children's novels under the pseudonym David Line. Run For Your Life is an example. The other important character of the story is not a human, it’s the deep frozen lightless Siberian winter. Kolymsky Heights is one of the best novels I’ve ever read in terms of capturing and using the sense of place to the advantage of the story. Finally, I should also mention the pacing of Kolymsky Heights. It is almost a master class in building and releasing tension, each time building the tension slightly higher until the last part of the novel when all that built up tension unleashes itself in a frenetic chase across Siberia. 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.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] 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. I am a bit bemused why Philip Pulman waxes lyrically over this novel. It will s a good story if wildly far fetched. I see the author has won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award three times so I plan to read his earlier novels.

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

Moonage Pictures, the UK production company set up by a handful of Peaky Blinders execs, is adapting Lionel Davidson’s Russian spy thriller Kolymsky Heights. Rodney Barnes Sets Scary Podcast Series ‘Run, Fool!’ With Ballen Studios, Eyes TV & Film Adaptations But the essence of the book is its relentless energy, finally tuned so that it all hangs together as a set of necessary perilous quest journeys (much as Pullman notes). It may have been because my mood wouldn't let me get into it but it also just wasn't a great story. Basically, this is the premise as I understood it. A Russian scientist sends a message to an acquaintance in the UK, a scientist he met many years ago at a conference in England. He has something that he needs to get out of Russia. He wants a third acquaintance to come and get it. This third acquaintance is a Canadian native, who also attended the conference.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? 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.

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Basically, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, other than to say that the last quarter is very, very tense and highly successful. Publishers Weekly described it as "shameless, wonderful, riveting entertainment". [1] The New York Times described it as "an icy marvel of invention". [2] A review in The Guardian described it as "a masterpiece of suspense". [3] There is also a quasi-science fantasy element that won't fool anyone with any understanding of modern science, even those inclined to think that the Russians always have something up their sleeves.Carroll, James (26 February 1995). "The Spy in the Cold". The New York Times . Retrieved 23 September 2021. In his piece, Pullman likens Kolymsky Heights to the classic quest novel, in that it follows the three basic ingredients found in such stories as Treasure Island, Jason and the Argonauts, King Solomon’s Mines, and Lord of the Rings. A hero travels to a far-off place in difficult circumstances; he must retrieve something valuable and there will be serious consequences if he doesn’t; finally, he must return even though he may be a poorer but a wiser man after the trials of his journey. Pullman also declares it the bet thriller he’s ever read, so we set out to see if he’s right.

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A sensational classic: this chilling tale of Siberian espionage is ‘the best thriller I’ve ever read’ (Philip Pullman) ranking with ‘ The Silence of the Lambs, Casino Royale and Smiley’s People‘ ( Spectator). 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 I've never read a thriller that so successfully transported me to a hitherto unimagined place. (Maxton Walker Guardian) The characterisation is also generally good within the conventions of the thriller with the exception of the hero who seems to be a sort of cut-out sentimental sociopath of enormous animal cunning but without much of an interior life as far as we are concerned. But that is the point - these heroes are not written by Jane Austen. They appeal to the latent sociopath in every male wolf turned into corporate dog. The sentimentality keeps the reader from forgetting that actually he prefers life as a dog, all things considered.Lionel Davidson was born in 1922 in Hull in Yorkshire, one of nine children of an immigrant Jewish tailor. [1] He left school early and worked in the London offices of The Spectator magazine as an office boy. Later, he joined the Keystone Press Agency. During the Second World War, he served with the Submarine Service of the Royal Navy. [2] This was Lionel Davidson's last book (he died in 2009). His son has recorded elsewhere the problems of its creation - it was rewritten three times.