Lost amid names and initials

Press, 18 March 1989, Page 27

Lost amid names and initials

The Bearpit. By Brian Fremantle. Century, 1988. 379 pp. $39.95. One of the troubles with books set in Russia is that, not unreasonably, they involve Russians. While this might provide interesting insights into national character, the relative unfamiliarity of the names of the characters renders them almost impossible to tell apart. Such it is, not merely with the intricacies of War and Peace,” but also with lesser fiction such as “The Bearpit.” I cannot remember the name of the hero of this spy book: it might have been Yuri something or the other, or it might have been Yevgennie

something or the other else. It certainly wasn’t Victor or Vradislav or any of the Americans. Anyway, never becoming clear about the characters was no hardship since the exact nature of the plot also maintained its impenetrability to the end. The representatives of the G.R.U., K.G.8., F. 8.1., and C.I.A. play out their intricate single, double and treble bluffs in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. The action is limited, the complexities unlimited, and in the end it is even hard to tell the nationalities apart. In two or three days, I shall have even forgotten that the book was entitled ... — Ken Strongman.