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The Patriot
The author of Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors draws from a palette of love, theft, politics, and murder to create a thrilling new novel. Set in 1991, after the fall of the Wall, and one year later in Moscow, The Patriot tells of a Russian security officer and an American art historian caught up in the investigation of the murder of an emigree Russian couple involved in the export of priceless icons.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
34 people want to read
About the author
Piers Paul Read
41 books145 followersBritish novelist and non-fiction writer. Educated at the Benedictines' Ampleforth College, and subsequently entered St John's College, University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MA (history). Artist-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation in Berlin (1963-4), Harkness Fellow, Commonwealth Fund, New York (1967-8), member of the Council of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (1971-5), member of the Literature Panel at the Arts Council, (1975-7), and Adjunct Professor of Writing, Columbia University, New York (1980). From 1992-7 he was Chairman of the Catholic Writers' Guild. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 9, 2017
Somewhat entertaining, but predictable ending
I’m always a sucker for Berlin set thrillers, however this one didn’t hit the mark.
Whilst the background details are quite solid the plot was weak, the characters lacked any real depth and the end was predictable.
Not recommended.
I’m always a sucker for Berlin set thrillers, however this one didn’t hit the mark.
Whilst the background details are quite solid the plot was weak, the characters lacked any real depth and the end was predictable.
Not recommended.
October 9, 2021
Not bad, I like reading about the time just after the Berlin Wall came down and the stasi, though it’s not really about them. It’s more of a story about an American art historian who arranges to exhibit ntrxik load of Russian paintings that were painted by dissident artists. But she is seduced by Russians loyal to the former communist party so that the exhibition is stolen and ransomed. So a kind of a spy romance.
September 4, 2020
August 1991, post Cold War tale set in Berlin and Moscow: murder, stolen Russian icons, romance, a Russian art exhibition. It should have been exciting but I found it utterly boring, disappointing and predictable. Poorly written with characters who had no depth and for whom I had no empathy. I guessed the ending very early on.
July 3, 2017
mpeccably researched but ultimately flawed
It is the early ‘90s in Berlin. The wall has only been down for a few years and the divide between East and West remains obvious. Those in the West are more affluent and live the dream. Those in the East still look over their shoulders even though the dreaded Stasi has been disbanded.
A married couple who fence Russian icons has been murdered. The husband was shot through the heart but the wife was brutally tortured but to what end? No progress has been made in identifying or arresting the killer(s).
Francesca McDermott is an American art expert who flies to Berlin to visit her old friend Sophie and her second husband Stefan Diederich, Berlin’s newly appointed minister of culture. Stefan proposes the staging of an exhibition of Russian modern art and asks her to become heavily involved, working with a Russian expert, Andrei Serotkin.
On the face of it, the novel has everything. Reflections of the cold war, the clash of East and West, cultural differences, Russian machinations, ex-Stasi members etc. It is remarkably well researched but unfortunately not very well executed.
The characters are two-dimensional and for a supposedly well-educated, intelligent woman, Francesca is a little dense as she fails to spot how she is being set up as the patsy. The whole plot was just a little too predictable to be enjoyable and also far too transparent. It didn’t take a super-brain to work things out early in the proceedings. The ending is also a huge disappointment for Francesca but since I felt no compassion or empathy for her it didn’t affect me either way.
A disappointing read which initially had so much potential. It was a shame it did not live up to expectations.
mr zorg
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.
It is the early ‘90s in Berlin. The wall has only been down for a few years and the divide between East and West remains obvious. Those in the West are more affluent and live the dream. Those in the East still look over their shoulders even though the dreaded Stasi has been disbanded.
A married couple who fence Russian icons has been murdered. The husband was shot through the heart but the wife was brutally tortured but to what end? No progress has been made in identifying or arresting the killer(s).
Francesca McDermott is an American art expert who flies to Berlin to visit her old friend Sophie and her second husband Stefan Diederich, Berlin’s newly appointed minister of culture. Stefan proposes the staging of an exhibition of Russian modern art and asks her to become heavily involved, working with a Russian expert, Andrei Serotkin.
On the face of it, the novel has everything. Reflections of the cold war, the clash of East and West, cultural differences, Russian machinations, ex-Stasi members etc. It is remarkably well researched but unfortunately not very well executed.
The characters are two-dimensional and for a supposedly well-educated, intelligent woman, Francesca is a little dense as she fails to spot how she is being set up as the patsy. The whole plot was just a little too predictable to be enjoyable and also far too transparent. It didn’t take a super-brain to work things out early in the proceedings. The ending is also a huge disappointment for Francesca but since I felt no compassion or empathy for her it didn’t affect me either way.
A disappointing read which initially had so much potential. It was a shame it did not live up to expectations.
mr zorg
Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.
October 21, 2018
It’s the early 1990s. The Berlin Wall has come down and the Soviet Union has collapsed. Time for a new start in East-West relationships. American art historian Francesca Mc Dermott is invited to Berlin to organise an exhibition of 20th century Russian art. Meanwhile a Russian couple trading in stolen Russian icons has been murdered and tortured in Berlin. And in Moscow the hunt is on for a rogue KGB agent who has gone missing. These three threads come together in a relatively entertaining tale of espionage with all the concomitant elements of the spy thriller. There’s lots of murky stuff going on in the background, plenty of twists and turns and misdirection, but it’s all rather predictable with some stock characters thrown into the mix. What irritated me, however, was the very male fantasy aspect of the novel. Francesca falls head over hills in love with the man from Moscow come to help with the exhibition and from then on talks and behaves like the most stereotypical romance heroine. “Even if Andrei was a murderer, a torturer and a thief, she was committed to him for better for worse.” “…she had no doubt the savage Muscovite could be tamed and ennobled by her love.” Really? This from an independent American professional? And what about this? “…she took a certain pleasure in drawing into her lungs the same smoke that had been in the deepest recesses of his body.” Piers Paul Read doesn’t seem too informed about what women really feel. She even manages to shrug off an attempted rape in a particularly unsavoury episode. And as for the melodramatic ending….However, overall the book is well-researched and atmospheric and even if the characters are two-dimensional, Read sets a good pace and the troubled relations between west and east post-reunification are conveyed realistically. Not a bad book, by any means, but certainly not a very good one.
February 8, 2025
I thought the novel was well researched, in including historical references and locations.
The most interesting character was Andrei Serotkin. I lacked any emotional attachment to the characters. Some characters made irrational choices and behaviour e.g. Francesca McDermott and Serotkin's relationship. I did appreciate the twist at the end.
The most interesting character was Andrei Serotkin. I lacked any emotional attachment to the characters. Some characters made irrational choices and behaviour e.g. Francesca McDermott and Serotkin's relationship. I did appreciate the twist at the end.
September 27, 2023
I would give this book 2.5 if Goodreads had half stars
January 10, 2023
2.5 Stars
"The Patriot" has been described by critics and its publisher as a 'thriller'. This title could not be less deserved. This book creeps on like a steady, inch-long snail making its way from one side of the African continent to the other. At its core, it is unoriginal, predictable, and bland. While Read has methodical, evenly-paced prose, he saves all of the plot for the last twenty pages and spends the rest of the book spinning a painfully un-shippable and un-believable love story. Read's characters are boring, unoriginal, and frankly impossible to connect with. He could have killed off each and every one of them in the most gruesome and heartbreaking ways and I wouldn't have flinched. On top of that, I don't think he has any idea whatsoever how a woman's mind works. Our heroine (I can't remember her name, that's how forgettable she was,) is given the opportunity of a lifetime that will potentially define her career and spends the majority of it giggling school-girl style after a man she doesn't even know. When she is almost raped, she is actually HAPPY about the assault because her love interest saves her and she spends the rest of the day thinking about how hot and heroic that was. And after she finds out that he killed and tortured people, was a former high ranking member of a brutal totalitarian police force, and lied to her about almost everything, she is still willing to throw away her now very promising career and bright future to go live with him in post-revolution Russian squalor. I am not someone who dislikes many books, but I can say without an ounce of doubt that this is a Bad Book. Not a terrible book (and I wish it was, because at least there is some courage in being horrendous,) and not a good book; It is safe, it follows a predictable 'mystery' novel template, it takes no risks and ties it all up in a ending that evokes no emotion, because, like I said, everyone is this book is saltine cracker versions of characters.
"The Patriot" has been described by critics and its publisher as a 'thriller'. This title could not be less deserved. This book creeps on like a steady, inch-long snail making its way from one side of the African continent to the other. At its core, it is unoriginal, predictable, and bland. While Read has methodical, evenly-paced prose, he saves all of the plot for the last twenty pages and spends the rest of the book spinning a painfully un-shippable and un-believable love story. Read's characters are boring, unoriginal, and frankly impossible to connect with. He could have killed off each and every one of them in the most gruesome and heartbreaking ways and I wouldn't have flinched. On top of that, I don't think he has any idea whatsoever how a woman's mind works. Our heroine (I can't remember her name, that's how forgettable she was,) is given the opportunity of a lifetime that will potentially define her career and spends the majority of it giggling school-girl style after a man she doesn't even know. When she is almost raped, she is actually HAPPY about the assault because her love interest saves her and she spends the rest of the day thinking about how hot and heroic that was. And after she finds out that he killed and tortured people, was a former high ranking member of a brutal totalitarian police force, and lied to her about almost everything, she is still willing to throw away her now very promising career and bright future to go live with him in post-revolution Russian squalor. I am not someone who dislikes many books, but I can say without an ounce of doubt that this is a Bad Book. Not a terrible book (and I wish it was, because at least there is some courage in being horrendous,) and not a good book; It is safe, it follows a predictable 'mystery' novel template, it takes no risks and ties it all up in a ending that evokes no emotion, because, like I said, everyone is this book is saltine cracker versions of characters.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 12, 2015
"O what a tangled web we weave," is a line that could well
have been written as a summary of this novel. Strands spun in post - Soviet Union Russia gradually
link up with those in pre and post (Berlin) Wall Germany in a novel of interesting, occasionally surprising twists and turns. The novel is more of interest for the time frame in which it takes place than the perhaps typical but essentially predictable characters acting out roles reflective of the culture from which they emerged. Exploration of ideological differences between the Russian and American characters add some depth, though the American young woman "chosen" to stage the exhibit of Russian art that is the novel's focus is a somewhat jarring. often naive presence among the far more ideological characters living out their schemes while
she blissfully proceeds in her vastly different world. The German and Russian police, still rooted in pre glasnost mindsets add color and depth to the tapestry of the novel.
have been written as a summary of this novel. Strands spun in post - Soviet Union Russia gradually
link up with those in pre and post (Berlin) Wall Germany in a novel of interesting, occasionally surprising twists and turns. The novel is more of interest for the time frame in which it takes place than the perhaps typical but essentially predictable characters acting out roles reflective of the culture from which they emerged. Exploration of ideological differences between the Russian and American characters add some depth, though the American young woman "chosen" to stage the exhibit of Russian art that is the novel's focus is a somewhat jarring. often naive presence among the far more ideological characters living out their schemes while
she blissfully proceeds in her vastly different world. The German and Russian police, still rooted in pre glasnost mindsets add color and depth to the tapestry of the novel.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews