The recent case of unsuccessful poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Putin´s most vocal and brave critic, brought back into the political stories the case of the (ex)KGB employees, wandering freely the world for vengeance against dissidents and defectors, one drop of poison at a time. Two years ago, Navalny himself accused Putin for being behind the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, former Soviet military officer that operated as a double agent for the Brits, together with his daughter, Yulia, on the UK territory. During and after the end of the Cold War, news about the long poisonous arm of the Russian secret services were aired regularly and served as inspiration for movies and books and maybe poems too, but for sure many historical research about deadly intelligence.
The use of poisons as weapons or messengers of dead sentences, however, is much more earlier than the creation of the KGB. In the Middle Ages and further on, in the Renaissance, not few were the princes - and princesses - who requested or created themselves deadly chemical combinations. Remember the stories about pages of books that you can only turn once - because imbibed with a poison that once in contact with the human skin kills slowly - most probably through anaphylactic shock?
Having this mixture of news, historical facts and fiction in my mind, Untraceable by Sergei Lebedev does not approach a shocking topic. Actually, reality can be much gruesome than fiction, especially when it has to do with old and new Russian/Soviet games. The book traces several cases of revenge against defectors with long-time involvement in the business of deadly substances in the Soviet Union and Russia. No matter what´s the name of the country or of the institution, there is no mercy for the traitors.
In the case of such a topic, what makes a difference between a nonfiction, historical book about murderous intelligence, and a work of fiction, is the art of the writer. Personally, I´ve felt tempted to focus on the non-literary aspects as poisons are a really interesting topic to learn about - although I abhorred chemistry in school. However, my nonfiction attention span was distracted by the writing which is dense, creating ambiances and exploring psychologies of people for whom deceiving is their first nature.
There are parallel stories of former defectors, themselves in moments of doubts and crossed about their real motivations and longing to return - the self-deceit is stronger than the conservation instinct. In this chemical world, consciences are as volatile as the elements used in creating various deadly potions. Taking out, one by one, the many layers of the Matrioshka dolls, one may go as far as the WWII and the Nazi experiments, or reach most recent events, as the war in Afghanistan or Chechnya. As the stories about creating poisons, the international events are the background allowing the stories of the unhappy spies to unfold.
I haven´t been surprised in a long time by a Russian writer. Lebedev sounds so self-confident, and fresh, taking a relatively worned out and unattractive topic to polish it, change some angles, add some psychological dilemma and relaunch the post-Cold War fiction narratives. Only the interest for new geographical areas distracted for a short while the attention from the old Mother Russia, although its boys kept making into the news, in the classical style of the James Bond parodies.
Untraceable was published in Russian in 2019 and translated into English for publication this year, right in time when Navalny´s state poisoning is in the news. I bet it will not be the last such occurrence. The translation is seamless and reading the book feels like it was written originally in English. It is an outstanding achievement in the case of two languages so different. The English translator is Antonina W. Bouis, considered one of the best literary translator of Russian literature. Among the authors she translated, besides Lebedev, counts: Mikhail Bulgakov, Tatyana Tolstaya, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Andrei Sakharov or Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Rating: 4 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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