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Archangel

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 2,973 ratings · 156 reviews

Fluke Kelso was once a scholar of promise, but like so many in the highly competitive world of academia, he's never delivered. But one night, at a symposium in Moscow concerning the release of secret Soviet archives, he is approached by Papu Rapava, a former Kremlin bodyguard with a story to tell. No one but the desperate Kelso would believe the tale, for what Rapava descr...more

Hardcover, 373 pages

Published January 19th 1999 by Random House (first published 1998)

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Dec 19, 2009 Blair rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, mystery-thriller-etc

This is a truly excellent book, one of the only novels I have enjoyed more and more with each re-read. The characters are fantastic - I had such a crush on Fluke Kelso the first time I read it, and post-Millennium trilogy I couldn't help but think Zinaida Rapava bears more than a passing resemblance to Lisbeth Salander. The historical detail and the part Russia's history plays in everything that happens (it's almost as though history is a character in the story) is flawless. But the depiction of...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: espionage

This is my second Robert Harris book after first reading Fatherland. The author does like historical novels. Russian history, both the old Soviet Union and the new Russia, play a huge role in this story. From Moscow to the old Soviet sub base of Archangel, the historian Fluke Kelso tries to put together the pieces of secret history from Stalin's mythical notebook. But Dr. Kelso does not like what he finds. And the ghost of the past threatens to affect change in the present and future. Good chara...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set in Yeltsin's Russia, Archangel is an intellingent, tightly-plotted literary page-turner, revolving around the discovery of a secret notebook belonging to Stalin and kept hidden from the world for sixty years.

Fluke Kelso, its hero, is a populist historian whose career has never really lived up to its early promise. But when he is accosted by a veteran of Stalin's labour camps while attending a conference in Moscow, it seems as if fate may have finally graced him an opportunity to transform h...more

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Jan 31, 2009 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mysteries-and-thrillers

Robert Harris is the author of the very successful and previously reviewed Fatherland, the kind of novel I usually do not read because it relies on the “what if” kind of assumptions that I find trite and silly. But that novel worked quite well. It assumed that Hitler had won the war, that he had successfully hidden the details of the Holocaust, and that he was about to begin friendly relations with the United States under president Kennedy. The a Berlin detective stumbles across evidence of the...more Robert Harris is the author of the very successful and previously reviewed Fatherland, the kind of novel I usually do not read because it relies on the “what if” kind of assumptions that I find trite and silly. But that novel worked quite well. It assumed that Hitler had won the war, that he had successfully hidden the details of the Holocaust, and that he was about to begin friendly relations with the United States under president Kennedy. The a Berlin detective stumbles across evidence of the killing of the Jews and the peace talks threaten to unravel bringing the war of officialdom down on the detective. It was a surprisingly good read.
Harris adopts a similar conceit in Archangel. Fluke (interesting story behind the name) Kelso is a Sovietologist who stumbles into a drunken meeting with Papu Rapava, a former NKVD guard who claims he had been present at Stalin’s death and had helped Beria (a Politburo member and KGB chief) find and hide a a secret black notebook that was purported to contain Stalin’s diary. Rapava is murdered before Kelso can obtain all the details and the location of the diary that would represent, for Kelso, the find of a lifetime. He tracks down Rapava’s daughter, a hooker whom he persuades to help him find the diary. Unfortunately there are several pages missing, but they have enough information to try to locate a young girl that Stalin had brought from her village to play with. He and an American reporter who had stumbled on Kelso’s knowledge of the diary and who seems to know more about his satellite telephone equipment than the country he reports on, set off for Archangel in the Soviet north during the winter to find the girl and interview her in order to verify the information in the diary and collect more details about Stalin.
There are many who would stop them, however, and a top notch thriller results as Kelso makes a momentous discovery in Archangel.
Harris’s understanding of modern Russia, if accurate, is chilling. The book is filled with little details (Stalin had two webbed toes on his left foot) that give it a strong sense of reality. Harris must have spent considerable time there: ”At five past 10, the door opened, '' Kelso describes a nightclub, ''A yellow light, the silhouettes of the girls, the steamy glow of their perfumed breath. . . . And from the cars now came the serious money. You could tell the seriousness not just by the weight of the coats and the jewelry but by the way their owners carried themselves, straight to the head of the line, and by the amount of protection they left hanging around at the door. Clearly, the only guns allowed on the premises belonged to the management.''
Filled with corruption and violence, the country still reveres Stalin, even though through Kelso, Harris reveals Stalin to be a greater evil than Hitler during the twentieth century, if one counts the number of people each had killed. The Cold War is over, but Russia seems to be slipping into its own kind of darkness and the country that provided the background for so many first-rate spy stories continues to invoke a sense of noir and darkness that makes for a gripping read.

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Jan 02, 2013 Vamsi Krishna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, I picked this one after my friend recommended it. It was a good book. I really liked it. It is a good book with really great twists.

The story starts with Papu Rapava, one of the Bodyguards of Lavrentiy Beria. Papu Rapava tells historian Fluke Kelso about the happenings on the night of Joseph Stalin's death. Beria with the help of Papu Rapava hides the Secret Notebook of Joseph Stalin. It is now left to Fluke Kelso to determine whether this Guy Rapava was indeed speaking the truth. Fluke th...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Anthony Eaton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a long time Fan of Robert Harris' work, and he's never more at his best than when he's pulling at and unravelling the threads of history. His book 'Fatherland' is a classic of alternative history, and in Archangel he has similarly imposed the past like a palimpsest upon the present.

In some ways, it would be possible to read Archangel as a companion piece to 'Fatherland' - Where Fatherland dived into the shadow of Hitler's legacy, in 'Archangel' we're taken into the dark places of Stalin's re...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Rowland Bismark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Robert Harris' first great success came with his novel, Fatherland, in which he suggested an alternate history in which Hitler had won the war (similar to P.K.Dick's The Man in the High Castle or Otto Basil's The Twilight Men, among many such novels). Harris took the great historical jump and carried it off quite well. In Archangel he offers another tantalizing possibility of rewriting history, though the jump he makes is not quite as great.

Set in post-Soviet Russia Harris posits the existence o...more

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Jul 20, 2010 Jerry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Clever Soviet thriller blends fact and fiction re Stalin...

It's clear that former BBC correspondent Harris either knows or has researched a great deal about Russia: from the life and deeds, many horrible enough to compare to Hitler, of Joseph Stalin, to the modern day "replacement nation" that forms the former Soviet Union. When Fluke Kelso, a Brit historian specializing in Stalin travels to Moscow to attend a minor conference, he gets a tip that encourages him to hunt for the oft rumored lost...more

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Mar 13, 2012 Endre Barath rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel

Archangel by Robert Harris… If you have never read any books by Robert Harris let me tell you something: You are missing out on one of the best Historical Novelists of our time. He writes as if it really happened that way. Harris’s historical research is obvious, the details are amazing. I have lived until the age of 11 in Communist Hungry and my father told stories, which coincided with events that happened in this book. Some of the details he included, you would not know by reading or studying...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Arun Divakar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

For someone who does not spend too much time going over history, the idea of the most horrendous monster that ever walked on two legs and in human form was Hitler. I was a believer in this theory too before I understood Russia in all its brutal glory. A few years ago I hadn't heard of the Stalinist purges, of the mass genocides in the erstwhile Soviet Union and of the human lives that perished like battered flies during WWII. Stalin in my old history textbooks was a hero who saved the world with...more For someone who does not spend too much time going over history, the idea of the most horrendous monster that ever walked on two legs and in human form was Hitler. I was a believer in this theory too before I understood Russia in all its brutal glory. A few years ago I hadn't heard of the Stalinist purges, of the mass genocides in the erstwhile Soviet Union and of the human lives that perished like battered flies during WWII. Stalin in my old history textbooks was a hero who saved the world with Eisenhower & Churchill from the grips of Hitler. Stalin and Hitler were terrifying figures but after the defeat of the Nazis at the hands of the allies, Hitler has been condemned to the galleries of horror while on the other hand even with so much large scale violence behind him, people venerate Josef Stalin across the continent. Power is such an unpredictable mistress for you never know how she will etch your name in posterity once you bed her !

This is a book with a lot of dark shades. It begins with an old solider's memories of the last days of Stalin & we see the leader in his death throes. It is an ode to the lost glories of Communist Russia and Robert Harris does his work well in describing it. The dilapidated buildings, bureaucracy that sinks deeper and deeper into red tape with each passing milestone of time, a one time good ideology that chokes the neck of further development of the nation and a place were the big purses grow bigger and the small ones end up with nothing in them.The first half of the book is something that I have seen in a different coat of paint in my home town & in Bengal where Communism now sings its past glories. I could recount a conversation with a bitter cab driver in Kolkata on the communist rule as I read through the descriptions of Moscow.

The second half of the plot is a mixed one where it alternates between an espionage thriller and a detective story which needless to say brings it down from that high pedestal where it sat some pages ago. One other contention I had was what lay at the focal point of the plot. It was more of a let down than a jaw dropping revelation. To be more precise, it is one story where the happenings around are more interesting than the central theme. Robert Harris is one of my favorites for this reason alone for he brings stark images to life with his words. Plot wise it had a lot of potential which I felt to be faltering towards the end. Even with such a regular fare going on, there were flashes of brilliance here and there mostly to do with human nature and its fallibilities.

This one sentence stuck me as a wonderful observation :

In an inner courtyard of a derelict building, lying among the weeds are statues of Marx & Engels. A couple of Victorian gentlemen taking time off from the march of history for a morning doze .

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May 01, 2008 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book! I love books that are fictional stories based on "real" history. Not the SS this time but Stalin. Could this have happened? etc. There was a TV adaptation of this a few years ago but it was nowhere near as good as the book and didn't have the same draw for me. Mind you, that's usually the case with TV / film adaptations I find. This is good (and educational - if you, like me, didn't really pay attention to history at school!).

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Dec 23, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

I decided to try Archangel because I loved Robert Harris’s Fatherland as well as the first two books from the Cicero trilogy, Imperium and Lustrum (the latter called Conspirata in the U.S.). I did not enjoy Archangel as much.

In the story, British historian Fluke Kelso (yes, that's the bizarre moniker of the protagonist) is attending a conference in Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow in the 90s. He learns of the possible existence of a black oilskin notebook owned by Joseph Stalin. From there, the book is a...more

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Mar 20, 2009 Fiona Moyler rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

After loudly praising Pompeii around my family I ended up getting all this guy's boks for xmas. This one was really good, but I found it took a long time to get off the ground, whereas Pompeii and Fatherland were gripping from the start. Once it did get going Harris did a great job of building up a sense of dread and it became very hard to put down as it went along. As other reviewers have said, it's hard to talk about the book very much without giving away the plot; however I will say that I fo...more

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Aug 17, 2007 Emma Clement rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone who loves a good old fashioned thriller

Shelves: readandloved

I read this book because I love Robert Harris' Pompeii and wanted to see if another book by Robert was as good. Absolutely amazing read, kept me thinking and guessing. I used to do most of my reading on my train journey to work and a few times I almost missed my stop because I was so engrossed! As much as I enjoyed this book, My fave is still Pompeii.

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Jun 02, 2011 Al rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fluke Kelso, a washed-up Russian expert, visits Moscow for a conference and becomes involved in a search for a mysterious piece of historical data from Stalin's time. He's quickly over his head, but unable to resist the lure of a possible find which would put him and his career back on the map. The book has lots of topical Russian information, and ruminations about the horrific events of the Stalin era -- and expressions of amazement that Stalin manages still to have a better reputation than Hi...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ausgeliehen, read-in-2010

Kelso, einem Geschichtsprofessor aus England, wird in seinem Hotelzimmer in Moskau, wo er sich gerade aufhält, um an einer Tagung teilzunehmen, von einem früheren Geheimdienstmann erzählt, wie Stalin zu Tode kam und dass er ein geheimnisvolles Notizbuch bei sich hatte. Kurz darauf wird der Mann ermordet und Kelso macht sich daran, das Notizbuch zu finden und das Geheimnis, das sich darin verbirgt, zu lüften.
Behilflich sind ihm dabei die Tochter seines Informanten und ein Reporter aus Amerika. Do...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Avel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found Archangel by Robert Harris to be mesmeizing in its unflinching blending of fact and fiction. Realistic, imperfect characters trying to deal with the horror and terror of the past while obessively running head long into it in the present. Harris is a master at developing characters and an complex storyline that holds you in a death grip till the final climax. If you like intrigue, unapologetic grit, and your fiction, intelligent, hardnosed and unrelenting then you must read this book. His...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An 'amazingly literate thriller' indeed, up there with the best of Mr Harris. In fact, calling it a 'thriller', i.e. something that predominantly 'thrills' is a misrepresentation. This is a brilliant critique of post-Soviet Russia, hyper-commercialised America, and a thoughtful observation of human motives. The man is that rare beast: a highly intelligent, erudite, observant and culturally engaged writer, who can write a killer story and in beautifully lean prose. A novel you cannot put down AND...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Gwan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I actually put it down for several weeks after getting a few chapters in, but when I came back to it I found it to be quite the page-turner. Crime/suspense fiction was ever my thing, but I've started getting into this sort of thing more recently as a bit of light reading. In that sense, Harris's novels, with their use of (skewed) historical details make a good bridge between the more literary reading I'm used to and genre books. Enjoyable plot, fun twist and reasonable writing and characterisati...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: badewannenlektüre, favoriten

Archangel is surely one of the best novels of this author, similar to "Fatherland" when it comes to suspense and intensity. It was gripping from the first page one and a real Page-Turner so I finished it in 2 days. That it is historically well researched is proofed by the lot of details of the Stalin era, and also by the positive critic of Orlando Figes, author of "The Whisperers", One of my favourites this year when ist comes to History.
So, this is really Four Stars!!!!

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Jan 27, 2013 Veeral rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stalinism, thriller, mystery

My fourth Robert Harris after the excellent Imperium, the satisfactory Pompeii and the not so good Enigma.

"Archangel" comes close to being as good as Imperium. In fact, if the third half (apart from the excellent and unexpected ending) weren't dull, it would be even better than "Imperium".

But I still think this is one of the best books written in fiction genre about stalinism in Russia. If you are wary of reading non-fiction but nevertheless are interested to know more about Joseph Stalin and t...more

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Aug 26, 2011 David Campton rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: popular-fiction, thriller

I suppose the plot twist here is relatively obvious, and the second half a little far-fetched. However it's strength is in its characterisation, pace and the vivid picture it paints of Russia in the immediate aftermath of the breakup of the USSR. It was refreshing to read this as it reminded me that Robert Harris can actually write good thrillers, in contrast to the cynical exercise in cashing in that was "The Ghost".

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Nov 16, 2012 David Lucero rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Robert Harris writes a compelling novel about the possibility of Russia sinking back into communism. His story about the rise of another Stalin seems vividly real considering how Russia has been in economic turmoil since the collapse of the Soviet regime. His character, Fluke Kelso, was played by Daniel Craig in the movie, which follows the book quite well. I hope to read more about Fluke Kelso in future stories.

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Feb 27, 2009 Michael added it · review of another edition

Interesting. Not at all like RH's other books I've read so far. This one is impossible to summarize without giving away the main deal. Not historical fiction... About the history of the USSR and it's relationship to Russia today. I think the world and the Russian people themselves should be terrified of where that country is going. Not a new opinion on my part, but this book brought the thoughts into focus.

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Sep 25, 2012 John Strohm rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Listened to the audiobook by Michael Kitchen; definitely the way to go. He does a great job narrating the story with a variety of accents.

Overall a decent mystery, although Harris telegraphs where he's going a bit too much. There are a blatant number of comments made by a character to the narrator, when it's really a comment from the author to the reader. Still, an entertaining tale of 90s Russia.

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Nov 17, 2011 LaDawn rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Picked up this book when Mr Harris himself told this was his personal favourite of all his books. Having loved The Ghostwriter, Fatherland and Pompeii, I decided to give this go go. Afraid i couldn't follow the plot or any of the characterisations. I couldn't get a feeling for place or time. But clearly this might be just me since so many others seem to love it. Moving on to Enigma with high hopes.

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Jul 21, 2011 Ken rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not as good as previous Robert Harris books.
A down on his luck Historian interviews one of the last people to see Stalin alive. He is told of a Notebook that Beria (Stalin's Secret Police Chief) removes from Stalin's safe and he hides it. Now its a race to find the book.
The book was ok, little bit slow going at first but picks up some speed. Unfortunately it didnt really go anywhere. When we finally figure out whats in the book it get interesting for a while but then again kinda fizzles out. He...more

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Oct 26, 2009 Stephanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Stephanie by: Nadine

I know very little about Stalin and Marxist-Leninist Russia, but that didn't mean I couldn't pick up Archangel and enjoy it somewhat. It took me about a hundred pages to really get into the story, but then I had to keep pushing through until I finished the book. This is my second Robert Harris, and I like his approach to historically-inspired "what-if" stories. I keep meaning to read Pompeii, too.

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Feb 19, 2013 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Russia just after the Soviet Union had broken up must have been a depressing place. Although the story line is unlikely, the pictures, painted in words, of Russia at that time, are stunning. The descriptions of the great forest of the north as winter sets in made me feel cold just by reading the book which had me enthralled and desperate to reach the end to find out what happened.

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Mar 09, 2010 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have the paperback which I read with gusto a few years back. Robert Harris is, quite simply, brilliant. I borrowed this audio version from the library and was not disappointed. Michael Kitchen reads the story with a passion that brings the words life and gives the story a whole new dimension. Listening to a story really does highlight bits that you miss when you read the words. Great.

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About Robert Harris

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Robert Dennis Harris (born 7 March 1957 in Nottingham) is a best-selling English novelist. He is a former journalist and BBC TV reporter. He specialises in historical thrillers noted for their literary accomplishment. His books have been translated into some thirty languages...more

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Quotes from Archangel

“But clever people all make one mistake. They all think everyone else is stupid. And everyone isn't stupid. They just take a bit more time, that's all.” — 4 people liked it

“Death solves all problems - no man, no problem. - J. V. Stalin, 1918” — 2 people liked it

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