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ТАСС уполномочен заявить
Юлиан Семенов (1931–1993) – знаменитый советский писатель, чья жизнь, к сожалению, оборвалась очень рано: Юлиану Семенову был всего 61 год, когда его не стало; но в Советском Союзе не было людей – да и в сегодняшней России вряд ли они найдутся, – которые бы не знали, а главное, не любили бы его книги и снятые по ним фильмы. По-настоящему народный писатель подарил нам "Майора Вихря", "Семнадцать мгновений весны", "Противостояние", "Огарева, 6" и многие другие замечательные произведения.
526 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1979
3 people are currently reading
157 people want to read
About the author
Yulian Semyonov
84 books32 followersYulian Semyonovich Semyonov (Russian: Юлиа́н Семёнович Семёнов, pen-name of Yulian Semyonovich Lyandres (Russian: Ля́ндрес) was a Soviet and Russian writer of spy fiction and detective fiction, also scriptwriter and poet.
The father of Semyonov was Jewish, the editor of the newspaper “Izvestia”, Semyon Alexandrovich Lyandres. In 1952 he was arrested as "an accomplice of the Bukharin counterrevolutionary conspiracy" and severely beaten during the interrogations; he became partially paralyzed as the result. His mother was Russian, Galina Nikolaevna Nozdrina, a history teacher.
His wife Ekaterina Sergeevna was a step-daughter of Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov (the wedding took place on 12 April 1955). Though their family life was quite complicated, Ekaterina Sergeevna devotedly kept looking after her husband after the stroke which happened to him in 1990.
They had two daughters – Daria and Olga. The elder one, Daria, is an artist, and the younger, Olga Semyonova, is a journalist and a writer, an author of the autobiographical books about her father.
In 1953 Semyonov graduated from Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, the Middle-East department. Then he taught the Afghan language (Pashto) in Moscow State University and simultaneously studied there in the faculty of history.
After gaining a degree of an interpreter in the University, Semyonov had diplomatic business in East Asia countries, continuing at the same time his scientific studies in Moscow State University (specializing in Persian history and politics).
Since 1955 he started to try his hand in journalism: he was published in key Soviet newspapers and magazines of that time: “Ogoniok”, “Pravda”, “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Smena” etc.
In 1960s – 1970s Semyonov worked abroad a lot as a reporter of the said editions (in France, Spain, Germany, Cuba, Japan, the USA, Latin America). His journalist activity was full of adventures, often dangerous ones – at the moment he was in the taiga with tiger hunters, or at the polar station, at the next he was at the Baikal-Amur Mainline construction and diamond pipe opening. He was constantly in the centre of the important politic events of those years – in Afghanistan, Francoist Spain, Chile, Cuba, Paraguay, tracing the Nazi, who sought cover from punishment, and Sicilian mafia leaders; taking part in the combatant operations of the Vietnamese and Laotian partisans.
Semyonov was one of the pioneers of “Investigative journalism” in the Soviet periodicals. Thus, in 1974 in Madrid he managed to interview a Nazi criminal, the favourite of Hitler Otto Skorzeny, who categorically refused to meet any journalist before. Then, being the “Literaturnaya Gazeta” newspaper correspondent in Germany, the writer succeeds in interviewing the reichsminister Albert Speer and one of the SS leaders Karl Wolff.
The conversations with such people, as well as holding the investigation regarding the searches for the Amber Room and other cultural values moved abroad from Russia during World War II were published by Semyonov in his documentary story “Face to Face” in 1983.
In 1986 Semyonov became the President of the International Association of Detective and Political Novel (Russian: МАДПР), which he himself initiated to create, and the editor-in-chief of the collected stories edition “Detective and Politics” (the edition was published by the said Association together with the Press Agency “Novosti” and played an important role in popularization of the detective genre in the USSR.
Semyonov’s participation in searching for the famous Amber Room together with Georges Simenon, James Aldridge, baron von Falz-Fein and other famous members of the International Amber Room Searching Committee achieved wide renown.
Yulian Semyonov and his friends, Andrei Mironov (right) and Lev Durov (Crimea, date unknown)
Semyonov, together with baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, a Russian aristocrat and first wave émig
The father of Semyonov was Jewish, the editor of the newspaper “Izvestia”, Semyon Alexandrovich Lyandres. In 1952 he was arrested as "an accomplice of the Bukharin counterrevolutionary conspiracy" and severely beaten during the interrogations; he became partially paralyzed as the result. His mother was Russian, Galina Nikolaevna Nozdrina, a history teacher.
His wife Ekaterina Sergeevna was a step-daughter of Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov (the wedding took place on 12 April 1955). Though their family life was quite complicated, Ekaterina Sergeevna devotedly kept looking after her husband after the stroke which happened to him in 1990.
They had two daughters – Daria and Olga. The elder one, Daria, is an artist, and the younger, Olga Semyonova, is a journalist and a writer, an author of the autobiographical books about her father.
In 1953 Semyonov graduated from Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, the Middle-East department. Then he taught the Afghan language (Pashto) in Moscow State University and simultaneously studied there in the faculty of history.
After gaining a degree of an interpreter in the University, Semyonov had diplomatic business in East Asia countries, continuing at the same time his scientific studies in Moscow State University (specializing in Persian history and politics).
Since 1955 he started to try his hand in journalism: he was published in key Soviet newspapers and magazines of that time: “Ogoniok”, “Pravda”, “Literaturnaya Gazeta”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “Smena” etc.
In 1960s – 1970s Semyonov worked abroad a lot as a reporter of the said editions (in France, Spain, Germany, Cuba, Japan, the USA, Latin America). His journalist activity was full of adventures, often dangerous ones – at the moment he was in the taiga with tiger hunters, or at the polar station, at the next he was at the Baikal-Amur Mainline construction and diamond pipe opening. He was constantly in the centre of the important politic events of those years – in Afghanistan, Francoist Spain, Chile, Cuba, Paraguay, tracing the Nazi, who sought cover from punishment, and Sicilian mafia leaders; taking part in the combatant operations of the Vietnamese and Laotian partisans.
Semyonov was one of the pioneers of “Investigative journalism” in the Soviet periodicals. Thus, in 1974 in Madrid he managed to interview a Nazi criminal, the favourite of Hitler Otto Skorzeny, who categorically refused to meet any journalist before. Then, being the “Literaturnaya Gazeta” newspaper correspondent in Germany, the writer succeeds in interviewing the reichsminister Albert Speer and one of the SS leaders Karl Wolff.
The conversations with such people, as well as holding the investigation regarding the searches for the Amber Room and other cultural values moved abroad from Russia during World War II were published by Semyonov in his documentary story “Face to Face” in 1983.
In 1986 Semyonov became the President of the International Association of Detective and Political Novel (Russian: МАДПР), which he himself initiated to create, and the editor-in-chief of the collected stories edition “Detective and Politics” (the edition was published by the said Association together with the Press Agency “Novosti” and played an important role in popularization of the detective genre in the USSR.
Semyonov’s participation in searching for the famous Amber Room together with Georges Simenon, James Aldridge, baron von Falz-Fein and other famous members of the International Amber Room Searching Committee achieved wide renown.
Yulian Semyonov and his friends, Andrei Mironov (right) and Lev Durov (Crimea, date unknown)
Semyonov, together with baron Eduard von Falz-Fein, a Russian aristocrat and first wave émig
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 17, 2013
TASS is Authorized to Announce is a solid spy thriller with plenty of Cold War "frisson," one of Semyonov's best. It concerns a CIA-backed coup attempt in a fictionalized Angola ("Nagonia"), countered by heroic KGB agents. Its plot moves from Africa to the US to the USSR, and its characters are mostly well realized (the male characters and the lead female, at least; several secondary female characters are a bit two-dimensional). More than this: with several other of Semyonov's books featuring these characters (the KGB agent Slavin, the Soviet reporter Stepanov -- unfortunately the other novels are not translated into English), its view of politics in the West is perhaps timelier than ever.
In Walter Laqueur's generally positive review of Semyonov's novels, reprinted in his 1990 volume Soviet Realities (he ranks Semyonov well above Le Carré, wrongly in my opinion and perhaps tendentiously), the academic cold warrior questions whether "intelligent people ... really believe that America [is] run by General Dynamics and the Central Intelligence Agency," as presented in Semyonov's novels. Substitute Monsanto for General Dynamics, include the acronyms of the CIA's domestic competitors, and the answer should be clear.
Speaking of timeliness: parts of the recruitment letter that the recently arrested US Embassy officer Ryan Fogle was allegedly carrying for his contact in Moscow -- the salutation "Dear Friend," the closing "Your friends," and some other formulaic language -- resemble the letters from the CIA handlers to the Moscow traitor "Mastermind" ("Umnyi," modeled after the real-life CIA recruit "Trianon," Alexander Ogorodnik) in TASS is Authorized to Announce. Readers will enjoy speculating whether Semyonov made use of actual CIA formulas that are still operative, the CIA made use of Semyonov's, or the Fogle letter is an FSB (KGB) insider's joke. Either way, life imitates art!
In a few places the translation is clumsy or over-literal. French names are given in their Russian spellings ("Gee" instead of "Guy"; "Grisso" instead of "Grisseau"); certain infelicities that would not have struck the Soviet reader are not corrected for the Western audience (e.g., as the reviewer downstream suggests, there are some problems at McDonald's: "cheese sandwiches" should have been replaced with "cheeseburgers" -- there were of course no "burgers" in either Russia or the Russian language in 1979). But the translator gets much of Semyonov's idiomatic Russian spot-on.
As Laqueur wrote, Semyonov offers something for every taste and intellectual level (he was speaking of the Soviet reading public, but I believe this applies to the present-day West as well). Strongly recommended for fans of the Cold War spy thriller genre, if only to get a glimpse of what people were writing and reading on the other side.
In Walter Laqueur's generally positive review of Semyonov's novels, reprinted in his 1990 volume Soviet Realities (he ranks Semyonov well above Le Carré, wrongly in my opinion and perhaps tendentiously), the academic cold warrior questions whether "intelligent people ... really believe that America [is] run by General Dynamics and the Central Intelligence Agency," as presented in Semyonov's novels. Substitute Monsanto for General Dynamics, include the acronyms of the CIA's domestic competitors, and the answer should be clear.
Speaking of timeliness: parts of the recruitment letter that the recently arrested US Embassy officer Ryan Fogle was allegedly carrying for his contact in Moscow -- the salutation "Dear Friend," the closing "Your friends," and some other formulaic language -- resemble the letters from the CIA handlers to the Moscow traitor "Mastermind" ("Umnyi," modeled after the real-life CIA recruit "Trianon," Alexander Ogorodnik) in TASS is Authorized to Announce. Readers will enjoy speculating whether Semyonov made use of actual CIA formulas that are still operative, the CIA made use of Semyonov's, or the Fogle letter is an FSB (KGB) insider's joke. Either way, life imitates art!
In a few places the translation is clumsy or over-literal. French names are given in their Russian spellings ("Gee" instead of "Guy"; "Grisso" instead of "Grisseau"); certain infelicities that would not have struck the Soviet reader are not corrected for the Western audience (e.g., as the reviewer downstream suggests, there are some problems at McDonald's: "cheese sandwiches" should have been replaced with "cheeseburgers" -- there were of course no "burgers" in either Russia or the Russian language in 1979). But the translator gets much of Semyonov's idiomatic Russian spot-on.
As Laqueur wrote, Semyonov offers something for every taste and intellectual level (he was speaking of the Soviet reading public, but I believe this applies to the present-day West as well). Strongly recommended for fans of the Cold War spy thriller genre, if only to get a glimpse of what people were writing and reading on the other side.
August 6, 2025
Entertaining with an interesting enough plot, but the dialogue and characterization is ultimately a bit shallow. I suspect this may be the fault of the translator rather than the author. Don't know if this really merits Semyonov as the "Le Carre of the Soviet Union."
September 8, 2021
This unusual thriller is proof that spy novels came out from the other side of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. A KGB officer in a fictional African nation (really Angola under the MPLA) conducts an intel battle against his CIA counterpart. An important read for those who thought there was only one side, e.g. James Bond or George Smiley, waging "the looking-glass war" during those crucial years.
The novel was a huge Best-seller in the Soviet Union and even earned a positive nod from Red-Bashing TIME magazine when it came out in English translation in 1979.
The novel was a huge Best-seller in the Soviet Union and even earned a positive nod from Red-Bashing TIME magazine when it came out in English translation in 1979.
November 15, 2022
Warning: contains a harsh exposé of the journalistic practice
The US, China and Neo-Nazis being allies – sounds far-fetched, right?
A political alliance between the US and China, even a covert one, is a ridiculous concept nowadays – albeit it wasn’t as unbelievable in the Cold War realities, to a small degree.
But the US allying with Neo-Nazi regimes? Utter nonsense, at face value., but yet again for the person delving a tad more in-depth into the specifics of WW2 and the post-war world, not as shocking of a concept either. Although “allying” may be too strong a word (a whole different perspective to that one from a contemporary point of view, but that’s a different story).
Going a step further in the realm of unbelievability: where Semyonov’s fictional (but based on observable facts and patterns of behaviour) portrayal of the US had its relationships with its allies in the realm of the covert-only, nowadays the collaboration is in plain view (with one party at least). Not through the secret services but bragging about military and political aid and involvement in the public domain.
Or maybe it is still through the services, whose role – as I argued in my review of Le Carré’s Smiley’s People – has evolved into a quasi-Orwellian propaganda machine, having merged into a Frankenstein-esque monster with the media, blasting heavy ideological pieces, condemning inconvenient personas and regimes, and persecuting wrongthink.
Nothing to see here, folk, just your good old, redecorated journalism.
Where we once, not so long ago, lived in a world where the media had distinct people acting as (1) investigative journalists (such as the great Sir Harold Evans and Yulian Semyonov himself), (2) reporters (news hounds), (3) news writers, (4) editors, (5) spellcheckers and a multitude of other roles collaborating with the aim to find, capture and present the truth to their readership, nowadays budgets are cut and all that’s left is bland hacks typing up pre-written press releases. In effect, the journalistic pyramid in 2022 looks like this:
-> Organisations (ministries, institutions, NGOs, companies) and their press centres write press releases – containing facts presented from the angle benefitting themselves the most, omitting anything deemed irrelevant;
-> The press releases are sent across to all media outlets out there;
-> The media re-writes the press releases so the news stories are presented in the most favourable way for their own ideologies… pardon me, to comply with their editorial guidelines (i.e. to satisfy the stakeholders) and in the right order/amount of emphasis, omitting anything deemed irrelevant.
And that is the business of truth, ladies and gentlemen. Utter garbage, said the poet.
There are no budgets for investigative journalism. In the sad economic realities these days, where no media outlet is turning up much profit, such an expense is not justified.
There are no budgets for reporters and news writers either – those activities take too much time. Where you’d need 5 reporters, 2 news writers and 1 editor to procure and write up 10 news stories in a day, you can easily have 1 hack type up 10 press releases, conveniently prepared by the organisations that served them on a silver platter to the media, in the same amount of time. Why waste money?
Which begs the question: what fraction of the truth and from what angle do we feed ourselves with from the media?
Semyonov answers the question with a palpable sense of mournful yearning in the last page of the book, where - after a deeply complex and multi-faceted mission in the realm of the covert, spanning three countries, dozens of professionals, an intricate set of human and material resources being used with the purposes of executing a task of the utmost importance, one with profound perceived consequences for the world, all of which hidden away from the public eye - the media gives us a simple statement: TASS is authorised to announce that…
Which part of the information has been deemed safe and important to share with the public will always remain a mystery. How the different media outlets will choose to present that piece of information and from what angle – not so much a mystery, if one learns to identify the media via their ideological (economic) biases.
We know nothing of the world around us. What we learn about the current conflict in Europe – or any conflict, at that – is nowhere close to the truth. We don’t know anything about the moving pieces in the shadows, how many they are, what they do, what their motivations are, what’s at stake. We can only speculate based on fractions of ideologically tainted information.
And that’s where the beauty of the spy genre, when executed well, shines through. It gives us a glimpse at an all so very real world around us, but one that is reserved for limited eyes only. It makes us think, stimulates our critical understanding of reality, and satisfies the deepest longing in the human psyche to know and to understand.
About the fiction
The book itself is not on the masterpiece level of 17 Moments of Spring or The Order to Survive by Semyonov or The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People by Le Carré, but nevertheless TASS is Authorized to Announce…
It is strongest when it delves into the mechanics of the craft of the spy. The elaborate and thorough fictional (or are they?) interpretations of CIA’s methods of liaising with their mole in Russia are a masterpiece of the written word, and a much discussed chicken and egg type of a scenario: did the CIA subsequently steal the described methodology, did Semyonov borrow it from existing documents he had come across during his days investigative journalism, or is it a case of life-imitates-art-imitates-life?
Well, TASS (or Reuters, AP, AFP and Xinhua) are certainly not authorised to announce that.
The US, China and Neo-Nazis being allies – sounds far-fetched, right?
A political alliance between the US and China, even a covert one, is a ridiculous concept nowadays – albeit it wasn’t as unbelievable in the Cold War realities, to a small degree.
But the US allying with Neo-Nazi regimes? Utter nonsense, at face value., but yet again for the person delving a tad more in-depth into the specifics of WW2 and the post-war world, not as shocking of a concept either. Although “allying” may be too strong a word (a whole different perspective to that one from a contemporary point of view, but that’s a different story).
Going a step further in the realm of unbelievability: where Semyonov’s fictional (but based on observable facts and patterns of behaviour) portrayal of the US had its relationships with its allies in the realm of the covert-only, nowadays the collaboration is in plain view (with one party at least). Not through the secret services but bragging about military and political aid and involvement in the public domain.
Or maybe it is still through the services, whose role – as I argued in my review of Le Carré’s Smiley’s People – has evolved into a quasi-Orwellian propaganda machine, having merged into a Frankenstein-esque monster with the media, blasting heavy ideological pieces, condemning inconvenient personas and regimes, and persecuting wrongthink.
Nothing to see here, folk, just your good old, redecorated journalism.
Where we once, not so long ago, lived in a world where the media had distinct people acting as (1) investigative journalists (such as the great Sir Harold Evans and Yulian Semyonov himself), (2) reporters (news hounds), (3) news writers, (4) editors, (5) spellcheckers and a multitude of other roles collaborating with the aim to find, capture and present the truth to their readership, nowadays budgets are cut and all that’s left is bland hacks typing up pre-written press releases. In effect, the journalistic pyramid in 2022 looks like this:
-> Organisations (ministries, institutions, NGOs, companies) and their press centres write press releases – containing facts presented from the angle benefitting themselves the most, omitting anything deemed irrelevant;
-> The press releases are sent across to all media outlets out there;
-> The media re-writes the press releases so the news stories are presented in the most favourable way for their own ideologies… pardon me, to comply with their editorial guidelines (i.e. to satisfy the stakeholders) and in the right order/amount of emphasis, omitting anything deemed irrelevant.
And that is the business of truth, ladies and gentlemen. Utter garbage, said the poet.
There are no budgets for investigative journalism. In the sad economic realities these days, where no media outlet is turning up much profit, such an expense is not justified.
There are no budgets for reporters and news writers either – those activities take too much time. Where you’d need 5 reporters, 2 news writers and 1 editor to procure and write up 10 news stories in a day, you can easily have 1 hack type up 10 press releases, conveniently prepared by the organisations that served them on a silver platter to the media, in the same amount of time. Why waste money?
Which begs the question: what fraction of the truth and from what angle do we feed ourselves with from the media?
Semyonov answers the question with a palpable sense of mournful yearning in the last page of the book, where - after a deeply complex and multi-faceted mission in the realm of the covert, spanning three countries, dozens of professionals, an intricate set of human and material resources being used with the purposes of executing a task of the utmost importance, one with profound perceived consequences for the world, all of which hidden away from the public eye - the media gives us a simple statement: TASS is authorised to announce that…
Which part of the information has been deemed safe and important to share with the public will always remain a mystery. How the different media outlets will choose to present that piece of information and from what angle – not so much a mystery, if one learns to identify the media via their ideological (economic) biases.
We know nothing of the world around us. What we learn about the current conflict in Europe – or any conflict, at that – is nowhere close to the truth. We don’t know anything about the moving pieces in the shadows, how many they are, what they do, what their motivations are, what’s at stake. We can only speculate based on fractions of ideologically tainted information.
And that’s where the beauty of the spy genre, when executed well, shines through. It gives us a glimpse at an all so very real world around us, but one that is reserved for limited eyes only. It makes us think, stimulates our critical understanding of reality, and satisfies the deepest longing in the human psyche to know and to understand.
About the fiction
The book itself is not on the masterpiece level of 17 Moments of Spring or The Order to Survive by Semyonov or The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People by Le Carré, but nevertheless TASS is Authorized to Announce…
It is strongest when it delves into the mechanics of the craft of the spy. The elaborate and thorough fictional (or are they?) interpretations of CIA’s methods of liaising with their mole in Russia are a masterpiece of the written word, and a much discussed chicken and egg type of a scenario: did the CIA subsequently steal the described methodology, did Semyonov borrow it from existing documents he had come across during his days investigative journalism, or is it a case of life-imitates-art-imitates-life?
Well, TASS (or Reuters, AP, AFP and Xinhua) are certainly not authorised to announce that.
February 20, 2023
Несмотря на то, что фильм отличный, книга очень понравилась. В какой-то момент казалось, что фильм русофобский, но нет. Книга еще раз это подтвердила. формула фильм->книга работает все так же. рада, что прочитала.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 25, 2018
Такий собі роман про боротьбу КДБ та ЦРУ. Події в основному розгортаються в Африці. Викрито працівника МЗС, який працював на ЦРУ. Трохи заідеологізований твір.
November 22, 2023
Took me three years to read this absolute slog of a book. The idea that there's a second book, or that this is part of a series horrifies me.
May 6, 2013
Sometimes the best way to ridicule an enemy is to quote him accurately. This is a spy novel that was written in the USSR in the 1980s, and which was subject to the USSR's rules of censorship. For some reason, it was translated into English.
It is unintentionally funny. For one thing, the author has a scene set in a McDonald's -- but he has no clue what is in a McDonald's or how McDonald's works, and he never talked to anyone who had gone to the Moscow McDonald's. The second thing to make it funny was when two Americans pause in their evil plottings to discuss where in Paris is the best place to buy Russian black bread. "Nothing is tastier than Russian black bread," one of the evil Americans says. Most hilarious of all? Two Russian characters stop everything to have an out-of-the-blue conversation about how Communism is better than Capitalism. (This "scene" is especially hilarious when you know that only a few years after it was written, the Russians themselves rejected Communism.)
I won't spoil the ending, but at the end, Mother Russia faces an unholy cabal of three groups (the American government and two others) who would never in a million years, ally in real life.
Two stars for believability, five stars for you-gotta-be-kidding entertainment value. If you loved _Reefer Madness_, read this.
It is unintentionally funny. For one thing, the author has a scene set in a McDonald's -- but he has no clue what is in a McDonald's or how McDonald's works, and he never talked to anyone who had gone to the Moscow McDonald's. The second thing to make it funny was when two Americans pause in their evil plottings to discuss where in Paris is the best place to buy Russian black bread. "Nothing is tastier than Russian black bread," one of the evil Americans says. Most hilarious of all? Two Russian characters stop everything to have an out-of-the-blue conversation about how Communism is better than Capitalism. (This "scene" is especially hilarious when you know that only a few years after it was written, the Russians themselves rejected Communism.)
I won't spoil the ending, but at the end, Mother Russia faces an unholy cabal of three groups (the American government and two others) who would never in a million years, ally in real life.
Two stars for believability, five stars for you-gotta-be-kidding entertainment value. If you loved _Reefer Madness_, read this.
October 10, 2013
Here's what I liked about it: it's a spy thriller like many others I've read, but it's the only one I ever read that's coming 'from the other' side. The Soviets are the good guys here and Semyonov pulls this off really well. I also enjoyed the philosophical musings thrown in. Like any good Russian novel, literature is at the core. It makes for an odd read at times, but a decent one nonetheless.
I'm giving it 3 stars because I can't give it 3.5 but also because it's just not as entertaining as a Higgins/Forsyth/Clancy, nor as wise and meaningful as Solzhenitsyn/Chekhov/Bulgakhov.
I'm giving it 3 stars because I can't give it 3.5 but also because it's just not as entertaining as a Higgins/Forsyth/Clancy, nor as wise and meaningful as Solzhenitsyn/Chekhov/Bulgakhov.
July 31, 2019
Semyonov's biggest best-seller is set during the Cold War. The
hero, Slavin, is a KGB officer, posted to an African country where the CIA
are planning a coup d'état against a democratic regime. Slavin is far more
refined and intellectual than his western counterparts in spy fiction, and
more subtle in his ways of foiling the coup. Whatever your politics you
will enjoy this.
hero, Slavin, is a KGB officer, posted to an African country where the CIA
are planning a coup d'état against a democratic regime. Slavin is far more
refined and intellectual than his western counterparts in spy fiction, and
more subtle in his ways of foiling the coup. Whatever your politics you
will enjoy this.
July 14, 2014
واخيرا و بعد طول عناء تمكنت من الإنتهاء من تاس و لم اعرم من هى تاس هذا المخولة بالتصريح الا في اخر سطر لأخر صفحة ..لأعرف ان تاس ما هى الا اسم جريدا سوفيتية ..المهم اني خلصتها.. رمضان كريم
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews