Perhaps I didn't enjoy this book as much as her others because it's so realistic. The amateur-professional tension rings true, because the professionals wonder if the amateur has enough detachment to see the bigger picture (and realize that his lack of knowledge is a hindrance), while the amateur is wondering if the professionals have hidden regional preferences and a lack of normal human response (friendships and loyalty). The collaboration between the 'noble' political geniuses and the calculating criminals, who only object to murder because it's bad for repeat business, also rings true. Most favorite side character: Gregor, the small-time anti-Communist refugee who knows his place in the world. Best quote: "Gregor was watching her [Francesca the information cell organizer] as he might have looked at a favorite child, performing before company, whose pretty little ways were going to mean a couple of well-earned slaps once the visitors had gone."Second-best quote: "Francesca, Paul thought unhappily, lived too much with her bitter memories. Gregor was looking at her as if she were some strange phenomenon. 'Now you are being a little bit stupid," he said. Paula stared at him. But he wasn't trying to be rude. He was stating a fact. 'If you are worried,' she asked, 'why don't you call the police?' 'Police!' Gregor began to laugh. Then he checked himself. In a voice so low, and yet so intense that it was frightening, he said, 'What do they understand of political criminals? Pickers of pockets, yes. Murderers of wives, yes. But politicals saying, 'I am noble, look at me how noble!' And then they sell their brothers into slaves. Oh, they are evil, evil, of an evil you do not know. They pick up telephone, like this, easy. They say, 'Two hundred men for Kargopol Camp. At once.' And two hundred men are shipped. Like cattle.' He took a deep breath, almost a sob, into his powerful lungs...His whole body is crying with pain, Paula thought."Now that is writing.
