"Archangel"

Archangel (Robert Harris)

Let's take a little Warhammer 40k break to look at a suspense novel. Without giving too much away, this book follows around a broken down old English history professor on the trail of a priceless notebook left behind by a young girlfriend of Stalin, eventually following the trail to (checks title) Archangel.
And it's pretty good! Harris is adept at filling characters out quickly (even if they can be a little cliche) - this is handy given the parade of Russian names that might have become confusing in the hands of a less deft writer. As it is, they're all quite distinctive, and you can almost hear the Imperial March playing when our villains are onscreen. I guess my only complaint is that the first half can drag a little towards the end, and the book's finale cuts out about ten seconds before I would have liked, but I suppose the resolution is clear enough. All in all, this isn't an impossible to put down book, but it's pretty tough.

Grade: A-