The Debriefing in Espionage Aficionados

Mar 26, 2015 Sam Reaves rated it really liked it

A nice little espionage puzzle by a master of the genre. A Soviet courier defects with a diplomatic pouch full of secrets. The CIA officer in charge of debriefing him finds the whole thing a little too convenient. His attempts to prove it's a setup eventually take him on a risky undercover jaunt to Moscow, where he enlists some local help to check out the fishy bits. Lots of tradecraft, a vivid depiction of the shabbiness of Brezhnev-era Soviet life, and the usual intellectual chess match, with ...more

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Mar 15, 2025 Michael Martz rated it really liked it

"The Debriefing" has all of those traits that endear spy novels to me: deception, lies, tradecraft, exotic locations, international intrigue.... it's classic Littell.

Here's the story: Kulakov, a Soviet diplomatic courier in the Brezhnev era, is in big trouble with his superiors but is given an unlikely assignment to carry a pouch to Cairo. Reading the tea leaves and realizing much of the rest of his life may be spent in prison if his myriad problems persist, he defects to the Americans while on "The Debriefing" has all of those traits that endear spy novels to me: deception, lies, tradecraft, exotic locations, international intrigue.... it's classic Littell.

Here's the story: Kulakov, a Soviet diplomatic courier in the Brezhnev era, is in big trouble with his superiors but is given an unlikely assignment to carry a pouch to Cairo. Reading the tea leaves and realizing much of the rest of his life may be spent in prison if his myriad problems persist, he defects to the Americans while on layover in Athens. The man dispatched to handhold Kulakov, Stone, sweet talks him into traveling to the US and giving up the contents of both the pouch and his head. Unfortunately, Kulakov doesn't know much about what's going on in Russia since he's just a courier and has no idea what's in the pouch. The American spy groups are ecstatic over the contents of the bag he's dropped in their lap, but Stone has some misgivings. This is where the fun begins.

Can the content of the pouch, papers, letters, diagrams stolen from the US, and a bunch of other material, be verified as real? Is Kulakov telling the truth about his role? Why is Kulakov defecting? Could this be the most elaborate fake defection in history or did the US discover a gold mine? The intelligence community goes through its processes to verify every detail of both the materials and Kulakov's story he's told in multiple debriefings and everything looks kosher, but Stone continues to smell a rat. He's sent under deep cover to Moscow in an attempt to corroborate all aspects of Kulakov's background and the various pieces of intelligence he'd been carrying. Posing as a KGB agent, he makes great progress until he is unmasked.

Robert Littell penned one of the greatest spy novels ever written, "The Company". The Debriefing isn't quite at that level and is at a much different scale, but it's a first-rate thriller. He was tagged early on as 'the American le Carre'' but his output has been a little too uneven for me to buy into that. However, this is one of his better efforts. Fine writing, great characters, a little humor, and tons of tradecraft made this one enjoyable read. ...more

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