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Book Summary and Reviews of Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer

Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer

Liberation Movements

by Olen Steinhauer

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  • Published:
  • Aug 2006, 304 pages
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Book Summary

Olen Steinhauer’s acclaimed literary crime series set in a fictional country in Eastern Europe began in the heady post--World War II era and has taken readers from the first noise of revolution through to the chaos of the 1960s and ’70s.

The year is 1975, and one of the People’s Militia homicide investigators is on a plane out of the capital, bound for Istanbul. The plane is hijacked by Armenian terrorists, but before the Turkish authorities can fulfill their demands, the plane explodes in midair.

Two investigators---Gavra Noukas, a secret policeman, and Katja Drdova, a homicide detective---are assigned to the case. Both believe that Brano Sev, their enigmatic superior and himself a career secret policeman, is keeping them in the dark both about the details of the case and all its players and about the true motives of their investigation, but they can’t figure out why. That is, until they learn that everything is connected to a seven-year-old murder, a seemingly insignificant murder that has had far-reaching consequences.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred review. Steinhauer's dazzling fourth book ..... gives a large role to Brano Sev, the seriously conflicted spy who starred in the previous entry." - Publishers Weekly.

"Tightly entwined story lines, compact scenes that evoke a grim world while capturing character subtleties, and a style pared to the essential make this a fast, intriguing read. " - Library Journal.

"Cool and cerebral crime thriller, full of political nuance and bathed in irony." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about Liberation Movements was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Olen Steinhauer Author Biography

Photo: Nancy Crampton

Olen Steinhauer grew up in Virginia, and has lived throughout the US and Europe. He spent a year in Romania on a Fulbright grant, an experience that helped inspire his first five books. He now splits his time between Hungary and New York with his wife and daughter.

His first novel, The Bridge of Sighs (2003), began a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe, one book per decade. It was nominated for five awards. The rest of the sequence includes: The Confession, 36 Yalta Boulevard (The Vienna Assignment in the UK), Liberation Movements (The Istanbul Variations in the UK)—this one was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel of the year—and Victory Square, which was a New York Times editor's choice.

With The Tourist (2009), he began a trilogy of spy tales ...

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