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When I think of spy fiction, the first name that tends to come to mind for me is John Le Carre. Who can forget books such as TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY, and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD? But Robert Littell can be considered the acknowledged master of American spy fiction. LEGENDS is a novel, which focuses on the life of one agent -- Martin Odum, a former CIA field agent who is now a private detective. Odum is suffering; he is not sure any longer who he is. Is his name Odum or is he Dante Pippen who is trained in explosives, or is he Civil War expert Lincoln Dittmann? With a number of past identities, he cannot really remember as he suffers from multiple personality disorder. He also cannot trust anyone. Approached by a young Russian woman to help find her brother-in-law, Odum takes the case out of sheer provocation after he is quite strongly warned off it by his former bosses. As he uses his hidden skills to decipher his client's case he finds as he is travelling that he has to battle not only mortal danger (on himself) but also psychological disorientation. As matters go from bad to worse and as the body count begins to mount Odum finds that both remembering and forgetting his past are deadly options that he cannot afford to have. LEGENDS moves back and forth through two time periods and Littell touches on many things in this novel: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world economy, Chechen rebels, Israel, Lebanon, the state of modern intelligence-gathering to name a few. Rich, and at times very funny and very dark, it is not surprising that LEGENDS won the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The view the reader gets of Russia from LEGENDS (whether rightly or wrongly) is a country that is in a criminal state of disrepair for which the United States must take some responsibility. LEGENDS is a rather murky tale at times as it explores the human and clandestine world of secret agents. The author with his hero's multiple identities and time frames plays ingenious games. One has to keep a careful eye on what is going on otherwise like Odum you can become disorientated. Despite all that LEGENDS is a novel that needs to be read. A gripping espionage novel, it has numerous twists that will leave you wanting more. A UK edition of the book is available, published by Duckworth (£7.99 pbk, ISBN 07156 35395).
Reviewed by Ayo Onatade, May 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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