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Archangel
They never told Michael Holly the risks of espionage in the Soviet Union. They never said that if he was caught he would be facing fifteen years in a gulag in the midst of a frozen tundra. It was supposed to be a simple handover and he never imagined that he would be caught. But when the unimaginable happens and he finds himself staring certain, inevitable death in the face. Holly has to find the strength to gather his resources to fight the camp's brutal regime in any way he can and with the limited means at his disposal.
But life in the camps is not like life in the outside world. It is the place where dreams are brought to die. Like the eight hundred inmates of Camp 3, Michael Holly has a dream of living through this hell. But against the might of the Soviet state, is he strong enough to keep his dream alive?
432 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
42 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
About the author
Gerald Seymour
99 books288 followersGerald Seymour (born 25 November 1941 in Guildford, Surrey) is a British writer.
The son of two literary figures, he was educated at Kelly College at Tavistock in Devon and took a BA Hons degree in Modern History at University College London. Initially a journalist, he joined ITN in 1963, covering such topics as the Great Train Robbery, Vietnam, Ireland, the Munich Olympics massacre, Germany's Red Army, Italy's Red Brigades and Palestinian militant groups. His first book, Harry's Game, was published in 1975, and Seymour then became a full-time novelist, living in the West Country. In 1999, he featured in the Oscar-winning television film, One Day in September, which portrayed the Munich Olympics massacre.
Television adaptations have been made of his books Harry's Game, The Glory Boys, The Contract, Red Fox, Field Of Blood, A Line In The Sand and The Waiting Time.
The son of two literary figures, he was educated at Kelly College at Tavistock in Devon and took a BA Hons degree in Modern History at University College London. Initially a journalist, he joined ITN in 1963, covering such topics as the Great Train Robbery, Vietnam, Ireland, the Munich Olympics massacre, Germany's Red Army, Italy's Red Brigades and Palestinian militant groups. His first book, Harry's Game, was published in 1975, and Seymour then became a full-time novelist, living in the West Country. In 1999, he featured in the Oscar-winning television film, One Day in September, which portrayed the Munich Olympics massacre.
Television adaptations have been made of his books Harry's Game, The Glory Boys, The Contract, Red Fox, Field Of Blood, A Line In The Sand and The Waiting Time.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
August 8, 2020
Diabolical, but it's what you expect from a great author. For a seasoned reader of Seymour, when you read a thriller and you can predict the ending a mile off, then all the suspense is lost and it's anything but a thriller. It just becomes a bit mundane. What you say, Seymour ~ mundane? No, at all. Only this one from the great writer was very predictable and this person also thought the treatment of the main character was strange to say the least. But, maybe, this reader has read too many from the author ~at the last count, it was twenty one. Without giving away of the storyline to first time readers, Seymour's ability to recreate the Gulag through description and verse was first rate, but his thriller, this person thought was a little too predictable. 'Archangel' still got four stars from me and because he really told us what it was like back in the day when the Gulag still existed.
Gerald Seymour has been writing thrillers for more than thirty five years. Here are a few ranked accordingly:
5 Stars ~ ‘A Line in the Sand’ and ‘Home Run’.
4 Stars ~ ‘The Waiting Time’, ‘Holding the Zero’, ‘The Dealer and the Dead’, ‘’No Mortal Thing’, The Outsiders’, ‘A Deniable Death’, ‘A Damn Serious Business’, ‘Archangel’, ‘No Mortal Thing’, ‘The Collaborator’ and ‘Killing Ground’ ,’ The Journeyman Tailor’, ‘Field of Blood’, 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and ‘Harry’s Game’.
3 Stars ~ ‘A Song in the Morning', 'In Honour Bound’ & ‘The Untouchable’
2 Stars ~ ‘The Corporals Wife’ & 'The Unknown Soldier’.
Other similar authors that this person has read include: John le Carre, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, Alan Furst, Mick Herron, Ted Allbeury and Robert Ludlum who focused on spy novels, conflicts or on espionage.
Gerald Seymour has been writing thrillers for more than thirty five years. Here are a few ranked accordingly:
5 Stars ~ ‘A Line in the Sand’ and ‘Home Run’.
4 Stars ~ ‘The Waiting Time’, ‘Holding the Zero’, ‘The Dealer and the Dead’, ‘’No Mortal Thing’, The Outsiders’, ‘A Deniable Death’, ‘A Damn Serious Business’, ‘Archangel’, ‘No Mortal Thing’, ‘The Collaborator’ and ‘Killing Ground’ ,’ The Journeyman Tailor’, ‘Field of Blood’, 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and ‘Harry’s Game’.
3 Stars ~ ‘A Song in the Morning', 'In Honour Bound’ & ‘The Untouchable’
2 Stars ~ ‘The Corporals Wife’ & 'The Unknown Soldier’.
Other similar authors that this person has read include: John le Carre, Len Deighton, Graham Greene, Alan Furst, Mick Herron, Ted Allbeury and Robert Ludlum who focused on spy novels, conflicts or on espionage.
June 23, 2017
Quite a good book. Interesting read, well written. Good storyline
October 26, 2021
Already we forget. It's thirty years since the Berlin Wall came down and the prisoners stumbled from the Gulags, but we are busy forgetting. While the Holocaust has, rightly I suppose, spawned an industry of remembrance, the victims of the Soviet Gulags are disappearing into a historical black hole. It seems no one is interested. Neither in the suffering and deaths in the Gulags, nor the almost miraculous end to it all: a Soviet system that seemed as unyielding as the Wall itself fell all but overnight and with virtually no bloodshed. We can look back at the events leading up to the end of the Soviet block and the finish of the Cold War but its actual denouement seems to cast a pall of unreality over people: it's as if, seeing a miracle, people cannot bring themselves to look at it, but rather forget.
A large part of that forgetting is the Gulags, the system of forced labour camps that the Soviet Union employed to dispose of dissidents and counter-revolutionaries. While not extermination camps per se, nevertheless estimates suggest that around 1.5 million people died in the Gulags, worked and starved to death, frozen, diseased or simply executed and thrown in ditches. The great chronicler of Soviet cruelty, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, seems to have been removed from literary consideration while the Gulags themselves have been brushed under the carpet of the new Russia.
Archangel was written when the Gulags still ground people through the system, and takes the reader on an uncomfortable trip back into still fairly recent history. Long out of print (I picked my copy up from a second-hand bookshop) it tells a slightly unlikely story of a doomed attempt to overthrow the Gulag system from within. It's unlikely in that the protagonist is a captured British agent and it seems unlikely that any such revolt would be led by a foreigner, but the story vividly conveys the every day acts of defiance and humanity that allowed the inmates of the Gulags to remember that they were men. As such, Archangel is a great book for this age of forgetting and if you can find a copy I strongly urge you to read it.
A large part of that forgetting is the Gulags, the system of forced labour camps that the Soviet Union employed to dispose of dissidents and counter-revolutionaries. While not extermination camps per se, nevertheless estimates suggest that around 1.5 million people died in the Gulags, worked and starved to death, frozen, diseased or simply executed and thrown in ditches. The great chronicler of Soviet cruelty, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, seems to have been removed from literary consideration while the Gulags themselves have been brushed under the carpet of the new Russia.
Archangel was written when the Gulags still ground people through the system, and takes the reader on an uncomfortable trip back into still fairly recent history. Long out of print (I picked my copy up from a second-hand bookshop) it tells a slightly unlikely story of a doomed attempt to overthrow the Gulag system from within. It's unlikely in that the protagonist is a captured British agent and it seems unlikely that any such revolt would be led by a foreigner, but the story vividly conveys the every day acts of defiance and humanity that allowed the inmates of the Gulags to remember that they were men. As such, Archangel is a great book for this age of forgetting and if you can find a copy I strongly urge you to read it.
April 14, 2023
Brilliant story
January 20, 2016
This is a good book. The plot is good: a British engineer caught in Moscow delivering a message for MI6 is condemned to 14 years in a gulag for Russian criminals because he is of Ukrainian descent, his conduct will inspire his fellow prisoners. The description of the gulag is harrowing. The characters are interesting being the main one, the KGB officer, the camp commandant, and the fellow prisoners. The end is a bit of a letdown but there was no way out. Like in his other books the main character turns out to be much stronger than could have been expected.
February 11, 2017
I must confess it, this will be a DNF...yes, I gave up after 112 pages of painful reading. I tried hard to get myself involved with the story, but I failed. I tried to like the characters, but I failed there too. I was expecting a good cold war espionage novel, but the book was far from it.
I will add on top of all that that Mr Seymour's prose is excruciatingly hard to follow, the way sentences are constructed is too often too cumbersome. So....
I will add on top of all that that Mr Seymour's prose is excruciatingly hard to follow, the way sentences are constructed is too often too cumbersome. So....
November 30, 2018
A different kind if story
I'm slowly working my way through Seymour's books, rotating with other author's and although Harry's Game is a stand-out classic I thought I'd detected a pattern but this book is a different kind of story and a very good read.
I'm slowly working my way through Seymour's books, rotating with other author's and although Harry's Game is a stand-out classic I thought I'd detected a pattern but this book is a different kind of story and a very good read.
May 21, 2017
Fantastic plot and a gripping style- was not able to put the book down. Bravo!
March 23, 2024
It's been so long since I'd read a Seymour novel I had almost forgotten how much I like his work. Archangel was written relatively early in his career but it displays all of the great traits I admired about his novels: solid writing, good plotting, international action. It's not his best but it's still a nice, albeit a bit incredible, story.
Michael Holly is a Brit engineer who gets talked into making a dead-drop for Intelligence in '70s-era Moscow. Being a non-spy, he gets followed, captured, and sent off for 15 years to a gulag in the far reaches of vast Mother Russia. The Russian spy languishing in an English prison that was intended to be used as a barter chip in a trade to get Holly released unexpectedly dies before the transaction is attempted. Holly, of Russian parentage but himself British, is treated as a citizen of Russia by his captors and sent in to serve his time with the general population. He's aloof but always thinking and ends up as sort of a Steve McQueen in the Great Escape figure when it's all said and done. I won't go any further in order to avoid spoiling the plot, but the descriptions of the desperate lives led by Holly and his fellow detainees were harrowing, to say the least.
Archangel would've made a good movie, I reckon. The main character, Holly, was a strong figure but the Russians were a bit too caricatured. Seymour's writing was as good as I remembered, including his irritating (at least to me) tendency to start off chapters without describing which character is involved in the action. You find that later after a few sentences, but it can be a bit confusing at times. The only real issue I had with Archangel was with the story itself. I'm not sure the activity at the end was plausible but, hey, it's fiction, right?
Michael Holly is a Brit engineer who gets talked into making a dead-drop for Intelligence in '70s-era Moscow. Being a non-spy, he gets followed, captured, and sent off for 15 years to a gulag in the far reaches of vast Mother Russia. The Russian spy languishing in an English prison that was intended to be used as a barter chip in a trade to get Holly released unexpectedly dies before the transaction is attempted. Holly, of Russian parentage but himself British, is treated as a citizen of Russia by his captors and sent in to serve his time with the general population. He's aloof but always thinking and ends up as sort of a Steve McQueen in the Great Escape figure when it's all said and done. I won't go any further in order to avoid spoiling the plot, but the descriptions of the desperate lives led by Holly and his fellow detainees were harrowing, to say the least.
Archangel would've made a good movie, I reckon. The main character, Holly, was a strong figure but the Russians were a bit too caricatured. Seymour's writing was as good as I remembered, including his irritating (at least to me) tendency to start off chapters without describing which character is involved in the action. You find that later after a few sentences, but it can be a bit confusing at times. The only real issue I had with Archangel was with the story itself. I'm not sure the activity at the end was plausible but, hey, it's fiction, right?
May 15, 2024
This is a very different story from that normally produced by Seymour or any other cold war thriller writer. A series of disasters, failed handover followed death of a prisoner leaves Michael Holly in a Soviet labour camp. He'd been asked to carry out a simple document handover whilst in Russia on a genuine business trip when the regular courier is ill, but when this goes wrong he is arrested. Initially this is not a problem as the UK have a Russian operative they can exchange. Things go wrong for Holly when the operative has a heart attack and dies before the exchange can happen. With no one to be exchanged for Holly's status changes since he had Russian parents they treat him as a citizen and he is sentenced to 14 years in a hard labour camp. Once there however he decides he is not going to roll over instead he becomes a nuisance, carrying out acts of sabotage, escaping and even leading a mutiny. What will become of this lone foreigner in a labour camp.
At first I struggled to get into the book as it wasn't what I was expecting but as it progressed it got better and better. The interactions between Holly as person used to freedom and the other prisoners who even before incarceration where part of a totalitarian country where freedom just didn't exist were well done and highlighted the difference extremely well. The ending though somewhat inevitable was still sad.
At first I struggled to get into the book as it wasn't what I was expecting but as it progressed it got better and better. The interactions between Holly as person used to freedom and the other prisoners who even before incarceration where part of a totalitarian country where freedom just didn't exist were well done and highlighted the difference extremely well. The ending though somewhat inevitable was still sad.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2024
A decent read. Very quickly into the action and the primary environment being the 'gulag' Russian labour camps in the bleakness of deepest Russia where hope is a rare thing and survival is a primary effort for all. The story holds the reader in that environment, described well the emptiness of existence and then the flickering of hope. This against the backdrop of some civil service incompetence and back pedalling trying to recover a situation that has gone wrong through a natural death not considered in the planning.
There are a couple of not readily foreseeable twists to the story which contribute to extending as well as expanding the tale towards as satisfactory a conclusion as could be expected.
There are a couple of not readily foreseeable twists to the story which contribute to extending as well as expanding the tale towards as satisfactory a conclusion as could be expected.
May 20, 2025
So many books that I've read lately have seemed devoid of emotion. The authors have thrown together a heap of sad buzz words and decided that's enough to convey the required emotion. It's never enough though and we can see through the charade.
Enter Gerald Seymour. I felt he held back in some respects whilst in others he took a dive into life in the Gulag and said this happened and you need to know. He took us there and gave us horror and anger and fear and hope and hatred. And not once did he tell us that was how we were supposed to feel. He lead us there and let the readers emotions evolve all on their own.
This was well written and a very interesting story. I'm interested to read more of his work now.
Enter Gerald Seymour. I felt he held back in some respects whilst in others he took a dive into life in the Gulag and said this happened and you need to know. He took us there and gave us horror and anger and fear and hope and hatred. And not once did he tell us that was how we were supposed to feel. He lead us there and let the readers emotions evolve all on their own.
This was well written and a very interesting story. I'm interested to read more of his work now.
January 2, 2025
I revisited this author after many years and was not disappointed. Having been a news journalist his insight and descriptions are so real that you feel you are right in the centre of the action. He writes in a particular style keeping the reader engaged and waiting on the developments of the story to unfold, which it duly does. He tends to address issues that were pertinent when he was writing and this particular novel covers Cold War espionage before the break up of the USSR. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2026
I read this book forty years after it's initial release date, it was worth the effort.
The book may seem dated, set in pre-internet days of smokey pubs, Brylcream and rolled up newspapers, but it is of it's time.
It conveys the period and mood very creditably.
If the descriptions are correct, then you would not have wanted to end up in a Ruski prison, as an inmate or an outmate.
Bowler hats off and half-pints of ale raised in the direction of Gerald Seymour.
The book may seem dated, set in pre-internet days of smokey pubs, Brylcream and rolled up newspapers, but it is of it's time.
It conveys the period and mood very creditably.
If the descriptions are correct, then you would not have wanted to end up in a Ruski prison, as an inmate or an outmate.
Bowler hats off and half-pints of ale raised in the direction of Gerald Seymour.
February 24, 2020
I don't often give 5 stars. This recount of life in the Russian forced labor camps is deeply felt by this gifted author, and is carefully laid out for us at a personal level in a heartbreaking tale of courage and despair.
Gerald Seymour continues to amaze me as gifted author, humanitarian and story teller of the highest order! Don't miss him!
Gerald Seymour continues to amaze me as gifted author, humanitarian and story teller of the highest order! Don't miss him!
April 22, 2020
Exciting storyline, an all-over great novel taking place in Russia with a classic spy-scenario in the center of the action.
I especially found the last third of the book very good. The Archangel is a brilliant reality-escape and i was entertained from the first to the last page. Almost felt like I was part of the story at times.
Definitively going to read more from Seymour in the future.
I especially found the last third of the book very good. The Archangel is a brilliant reality-escape and i was entertained from the first to the last page. Almost felt like I was part of the story at times.
Definitively going to read more from Seymour in the future.
January 20, 2022
Nearly a two star rating, as I found the ending very disappointing, and the main character quite unbelievable in his ability to do just about everything he needed to, despite not being trained as a spy or a soldier. Also, the fact that the author felt it necessary to use the character's name a dozen times on every page was truly annoying.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 27, 2019
A friend gave me this book to read, I didn't want to read it as I have so many of my own to get through. I had to though so I could give it back and I am so glad I did. It is a great book, the first I have read by Gerald Seymour. I will be reading more from him.
October 14, 2024
I really enjoyed this read right up until the end. Most of the book is about his time in the prison and the things he does to survive as well as his little bits of sabotage that he does.
Then the ending - it kind of fell a bit flat for me.
Then the ending - it kind of fell a bit flat for me.
April 20, 2020
Lovely building of suspense throughout the story, to a fitting ending. Would thoroughly recommend.
Read
August 18, 2020Brilliant.
April 27, 2021
9.5/10 17% SH. Really brilliant page Turner about life in a Russian labour camp. Slightly limp ending hence reduced score. Worth Reading again, great author.
April 17, 2022
Made me cry
June 8, 2023
I enjoyed this book, I had no idea how it was going to end which is always good. The characters were interesting and engaging.
January 6, 2026
Its cold and dark and grey black with a ray of sunshine.
Fair play Gerald, fair play.
Fair play Gerald, fair play.
February 1, 2015
A 1980s thriller, set in the Soviet Union gulag system. A British citizen, with business taking him to the Soviet Union, is recruited by military intelligence to pass a message to a contact. Said citizen is caught, and sentenced to 14 years of the hardest punishment for espionage, in a camp for Russian prisoners, the character being treated as such due to his parentage and language skills.
No Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn, obviously, but Seymour writes contemporary, real, meaty thrillers and I was unbelievably excited to start reading this. The portrayal of the Stalinist camps, in an era which in hindsight we know as heading towards Perestroika/Glasnost, is fascinating.
I loved the main character, the classic non demonstrative, moral, stubborn but with hidden depths of forebearance that Seymour seems to specialise in. Great portrayals of all characters, a young ambitious KGB officer attempting to break the "hero", various tragi-comic Russian prisoners, the Camp Commandant, a Paratrooper Major having upset someone sent to the backwater, are all empathetically drawn.
80% in I could not see this as anything less than 5 stars, but then a story of classic humane resistance against totalitarianism suddenly had tanks being blown up by starving campers, and i sniffed a little bollockios. But still amazing in parts.
No Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn, obviously, but Seymour writes contemporary, real, meaty thrillers and I was unbelievably excited to start reading this. The portrayal of the Stalinist camps, in an era which in hindsight we know as heading towards Perestroika/Glasnost, is fascinating.
I loved the main character, the classic non demonstrative, moral, stubborn but with hidden depths of forebearance that Seymour seems to specialise in. Great portrayals of all characters, a young ambitious KGB officer attempting to break the "hero", various tragi-comic Russian prisoners, the Camp Commandant, a Paratrooper Major having upset someone sent to the backwater, are all empathetically drawn.
80% in I could not see this as anything less than 5 stars, but then a story of classic humane resistance against totalitarianism suddenly had tanks being blown up by starving campers, and i sniffed a little bollockios. But still amazing in parts.
June 6, 2013
Michael Holly is enlisted by the British Secret Service to drop off a package in Russia and is given the reassurance that if anything goes wrong, they have a Russian prisoner that they can exchange for him. Only, the Russian dies and Michael is caught, sentenced, and sent to the brutal prisoner camps. While his handlers back in England try to find out what has happened to him and whether they can get him home, Michael has to find out whether he is strong enough to survive the regime designed to make all hope and dreams die. Survive - and maybe just fight back.
I really enjoyed this book, maybe because it's a thriller, but quite removed from the normal spy stories. For a start, it all goes wrong and Michael isn't some super human, just a regular guy trying to survive. Or maybe not that regular!
I really enjoyed this book, maybe because it's a thriller, but quite removed from the normal spy stories. For a start, it all goes wrong and Michael isn't some super human, just a regular guy trying to survive. Or maybe not that regular!
February 28, 2010
This is a great thriller by Gerald Seymour the main character Michael Holly, who is a quiet English mechanical engineer, runs a small errand for the British intelligence service, gets caught and is given fifteen years in a desolate Russian labour camp. He becomes a resistance hero and causes havoc in the camp. Its action packed and is a well thought-out and is the best Gerald Seymour novel in my opinion.
April 16, 2011
My first 5 star book this year! I read it after Robert Harris's "Archangel". That was good (4 stars) but this Seymour book beat the pants off it. Was riveted throughout the second half of the book. And the end brought tears to my eyes. Fantastic read!
I'd never heard of Seymour before (in fact, he's written about 27 novels) but I'll be looking out for some more now.
I'd never heard of Seymour before (in fact, he's written about 27 novels) but I'll be looking out for some more now.
January 13, 2016
I found this to be an interesting book to read even though it isn't a spy novel per se. The writing is solid and the story is well developed. The author strikes a nice balance between action and character development. Some interesting philosophical questions are raised that make this a good choice for book club discussions.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews