Excellent historical spy thriller set in the early sixties about two brothers — one defected to Russia—the other publishing his memoirs. Excellent writing, suspenseful,intelligent and thoughtful. Not many like him. Highly recommended.

<Another great espionage novel from Josef Kanon

Defectors is set in 1960's Moscow where ex-CIA agent Frank Weeks, a notorious defector to the Soviet Union, wants to publish his memoirs. Frank’s brother, Simon hasn’t seen his brother in more than ten years, but he comes to Moscow to assist in its publication and to learn why Frank chose to betray his country and his family.

Kanon always captures a great sense of time and place in his descriptions of 1960’s Moscow. If you’re expecting high octane action, forget it, but if you’re after a powerful cerebral espionage novel you’ve come to the right place.

With a great cast of fellow defectors, including Frank’s wife Joanne we discover there’s more to the story than meets the eye leading to a great finale.

It’s difficult to mention much without a spoiler, but it’s safe to say that Kanon is a great espionage writer and this book is a worthy addition to the genre.

Simon Weeks is running a publishing company, having been forced out of the State Department after his brother Frank, a CIA agent, defected. Now, in the Khrushchev years, Simon has the chance to publish Frank’s “tell all” book. But first, he needs to meet Frank, for the first time in years. To that end, Simon travels to Moscow.

There is tension between the brothers that goes beyond Frank’s defection. Some of it involves Frank’s wife, who traveled with Frank to Moscow. But the tension mounts when Simon learns that Frank wants to defect … again … this time betraying the Soviets by returning to the US.

In the best tradition of spy novels, the reader wonders what sort of treachery is really afoot as the novel progresses. Joseph Kanon keeps the reader guessing as Simon second-guesses then third-guesses everything he is told. Suspense elevates when things get sticky, but it isn’t always clear for whom the reader is supposed to root.

The novel’s background accounts for the plural title. Guy Burgess and an assorted crew of spies spend their nights drinking and moaning about the boring lives they’ve settled into, quite a change from the exciting lives of deception they once lived. Some of the defectors and their wives play key roles as the story unfolds. Some are conflicted, prone to second-guessing the decisions that defined their lives, while others seem quietly resigned to the isolated lives that Soviet heroes live when they are never quite trusted by the Soviet government. Only Frank, an active officer in the KGB, seems to have gained the trust of his superiors, but as he well knows, nobody is trusted, and perhaps nobody deserves to be trusted.

The surprising plot ends with two tight twists. That is reason enough to recommend Defectors, but the novel’s emotional resonance comes from the complexity of its characters and their shifting relationships. Everyone seems to be betraying everyone in Defectors. Everyone is playing a role, some unwillingly, some for the love of the game. The shifting and uncertain relationship between the two brothers, in particular, is masterful.

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The Russia of Joseph Kanon's Defectors (Atria, digital galley via NetGalley) is the Soviet Union circa 1961, gray and grim as the Cold War. Even the Party faithful have to wait in long lines for food and depend on the black market for basic amenities. Simon Weeks has often wondered why his older brother Frank, a CIA golden boy, chose to defect in 1949. Was it money, ideology, gamesmanship? Now Frank has written his KGB-approved memoirs and asks Simon, who became a publisher after his brother's defection ended his State Department career, to edit the manuscript. Simon discovers his brother is as charming and wily as ever, even though he is accompanied everywhere by a minder, and the restricted, isolated lifestyle has turned his beautiful wife Joanna into an alcoholic. They consort only with other defectors, from famous figures like Guy Burgess to anonymous research scientists. A recent death in the group is presumed a suicide. When Frank begins to show his hand, Simon senses something is up and must fall back on old tradecraft. Betrayal is in the air, murder in a cathedral.

Kanon, who has written spy thrillers set in Istanbul, Berlin and Los Alamos, is at the top of his game. Defectors offers suspense and atmosphere galore, but it also explores the perplexing nature of a double agent, as well as enduring questions of loyalty to family and country. A timely tale.

from On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever

Joseph Kanon's Defectors is a tale of two brothers, separated by the Iron Curtain. In 1949, CIA agent Frank Weeks was exposed as a Communist spy and fled to Russia. His brother Simon had to resign from his job at the State Department and turned to publishing. Twelve years later, Frank contacts Simon to inform him that he's written his (KGB-approved) memoir. Frank asks Simon to travel to Moscow to edit the book. But can he be trusted? What does he really want from his brother?

If you've ever wondered what it's like for defectors - and enjoy a well plotted mystery - delve into Joseph Kanon's latest.

Defectors is a fascinating glimpse behind the Iron Curtain, specifically the Soviet Union, in the 1960’s. Simon Weeks is making an unprecedented visit to the U.S.S.R. to visit his brother Frank, an individual who defected from the U.S. to the Soviet Union in the early 1950’s. Frank has been given permission by the Soviet government to publish his memoirs, and his brother Simon is a bigwig at a publishing company that has agreed to handle the publication. As Frank cannot leave his adopted country, Simon must travel to Moscow to interview Frank and complete the memoir. As soon as Simon arrives, he realizes that Frank has other greater plans afoot, and the treachery and betrayals begin.

While I enjoyed the entire book, the best parts of this book by far were the descriptions of the lives of the American and British defectors in Moscow during this time period and 1960’s era Moscow itself. Stalin had only been dead for 8 years, and life as a Soviet citizen was restrictive and full of shortages and fear. The defectors are not treated as they had expected to be, and the Soviets employed all manner of spy techniques to keep an eye on these individuals.

If you like spy novels, I recommend picking this one up. Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Often spy novels are quite sprawling, spanning a long period of time, perhaps a double timeframe, and travelling with the agents from one place to another. This book is the opposite: it almost resembles a Greek drama in its unities. It takes place over the course of a couple of days in 1961, and 90% of it is set in Moscow. There are tempting memories for the characters, but Kanon refuses to go in for the usual flashbacks.

It’s a great setup: Simon and Frank Weeks are brothers, sons of an important and highly respectable (and one guesses rich) American political family. They were born to rule. But 12 years earlier, Frank had been exposed as a Soviet spy, and only just managed to escape to Moscow, where he’s been living ever since. Simon’s own diplomatic career was ruined, but now he is a publisher. And he has been given the chance to publish his brother’s memoirs, and has flown in to go over the MS with him, to sort out the details. It turns out that Frank’s wife Joanna (who is in Moscow too) has some history with Simon. Of course both brothers are under constant surveillance.

It is a most winning assembly of circumstances: you know it’s not just going to be about copyright and the royalties – something is going to happen. And Kanon turns it all into a great, enthralling and very tense book: this is a fabulous read.

Frank is an amalgam of some US and British spies – but has a lot in common with Kim Philby: not so much the history (though anyone familiar with the story will be substituting ‘Albanian’ for ‘Latvian’ at certain points), as the attitudes and the positioning and the post-defection life. Frank’s book is to be called ‘My Secret Life’, Philby’s very similar book is called ‘My Silent War’.

Significantly, Philby is just about the only real-life spy of the era not mentioned in the book – several of them have walk-on roles. Then there is the lunch-party at the dacha (weekend house in the country) in the second extract above – other (fictional) defectors attend, and it is a particularly compelling scene, I wished it would go on forever.

But I also loved many of the other scenes as they travelled around Moscow, and later the then-Leningrad, and the occasional fascinating comments. Frank points to
‘Gorky Street… Everybody wanted to live here then. You know, Moscow’s still medieval that way – people want to be close to the castle, to the center.’
Perhaps even un-American rather than mediaeval?

There’s quite a dreamy atmosphere to the first half: to describe it as ‘slow’ would be quite wrong, but it skims along nicely as you try to work out what is going on. It explodes into action around half way through, and becomes almost unputdownable. It is extremely well-plotted, and full of unexpected events, right through to a strangely touching ending.

Throughout the book, the Americans are referred to as the Agency (CIA)  and the Russians as the Service (KGB). I (not being a spy) did occasionally have to think which was which. And a point was made in the book that I’ve often thought: ‘Defectors’ is the title of the book, and I have used the word in this post, but:
‘It’s a funny word, defector. Latin, defectus. To desert. Lack something. Makes it sound as if we had to leave something behind. To change sides. But we were already on this side. We didn’t leave anything.’
It’s not an overlong book, but it also fits in, alongside the tense and compelling plot, considerations of the life of a Western spy resettled in the USSR, the meaning of being an agent or a spy, the moral considerations, the philosophies involved.

Anyone who likes spy fiction will love this book… I have read and enjoyed several excellent books by Joseph Kanon, and this is the best so far.

The top picture shows the British spy Guy Burgess in Red Square Moscow, with Tom Driberg, a British politician who visited him there.

The painting is by Aleksandr Gerasimov showing a young woman at a dacha in 1912. I found it on Wikimedia Commons: it had been picked up from this site.

Simon Weeks and his older brother Frank were always together, including during their intelligence work through and after World War II. Frank was with the OSS and transitioned to its successor, the CIA. But all along Frank was a Soviet mole, seduced to the call of communism during the Spanish Civil War. In 1950, like so many spies before him, he defected to the USSR.

With such a brother, naturally Simon had to leave his job at the State Department. He wound up in publishing where, over a decade later he is approached by the Soviets to publish his brother’s memoirs and to come to Moscow to do final editorial work on them with Frank. Naturally, Simon has mixed feelings about the proposal, but in the end he wants to see Frank and Frank’s wife Joanna, Simon’s own girlfriend from long ago.

Once in Moscow, Simon sees the bizarrely privileged and yet claustrophobic life of a western defector. Simon himself is under the constant gaze of the KGB and that of the CIA and the western press stationed in Moscow. Then Frank makes a shocking proposition . . .

This is not a big action thriller; its thrills are mostly cerebral, as you try to figure out the dizzyingly complex plotting and motivations of all the players and, with Simon, attempt to stay ahead of them all––including his own brother. For a loyal man like Simon, the hardest part is understanding that betrayal is as natural as breathing to those he is up against.

There is a famous saying of E. M. Forster: “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” I always thought this was a deep notion, but in this book Kanon tears it apart. He vividly shows that there is no such choice; that betraying one’s country by spying for another is a betrayal of everything, including friends and family.

I’ve always liked Kanon’s books, but he’s on a real roll recently, between this novel and his last one, Leaving Berlin, focusing on the Cold War and the subject of defectors to the USSR and the DDR. Compromise, collaboration, betrayal are all rich themes for Kanon’s exploration. Highly recommended.

This was an interesting story with quite a few oddball characters. The style of writing helped to build character definition and mental images for the reader. Yet, the extensive use of conversations of tangential interest tended to make the book drag a little for me. The plot itself is quite interesting, and I'm glad I stuck it through, but there were definitely times when I wanted to put the book down.

This might well be the best Kanon novel yet. Set in the Soviet Union at the height of. the Cold War, it introduces us to a complex protagonist, the American spy Frank Weeks, who is a former CIA operative. His straight-arrow brother Simon comes to visit thinking he'll work with Frank on a Frank's memoirs. But Frank has another, more dangerous idea. Kanon's mastery of plot , psychology and Moscow's drab, monumental landscape is is evident, but what makes him special is how he weaves the machinations of Cold War politics into his espionage tales. This is a great stay-up- past your bedtime thriller.

Joseph Kanon newest novel The Defectors is a well written thriller
The plot grips the readers interest with interesting characters are compelling actions. It tells a story story of two brothers with different political ideologies. The older brother betrayed the United States and fled to Russia with his wife. Many years later he wants to write his autobiography and use his brother who is now publishers books to visit him in Russia. They are reunited but nothing is easy in Russia.
The story is fascinating

Defectors by Joseph Kanon- This is cold war story set in the late fifties/early sixties, about two brothers with a history of spying. Simon, who served with the OSS along side his brother during World War Two, and Frank, who caught the revolutionary spirit of Communism and defected to Russia, taking lives and secrets with him. Now. after twelve years, Simon is head of a small publishing house in New York, and Frank is a Colonel in the KGB. Frank is writing his memoirs and entices Simon to come to Russia under Nikita Khrushchev, to formulate a book deal. But old habits die hard and once in the shady bleak haunts of Moscow, Simon finds himself enlisted in a dubious scheme that scares him as much as intrigues him. Is Frank up to his tricks again? Can they possibly get away with it? The story is occupied buy a mixed casting of defectors, their minders, and the people they have hurt in the process. Excellent character development make everything realistic and gut-wrenching, when things start going off the rails. An intense read that always keeps you guessing. Not Le Carre', but close, and very enjoyable.

Joseph Kanon has done it again. His latest book, The Defectors, is a deceptively simple yet quite complex twisted story that has the reader racing to the end, wondering just who is defecting from where and from what. Kanon knows how to tell a story and, as importantly, how to build his characters, peeling back layers one by one. This is another winner.

As a fan of he author, I was pleased to receive an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. I put everything else aside and devoured this novel. For the most part, I really enjoyed it. It was all quite believable, and the Russian setting seemed truly portrayed. Toward the end, Simon, the brother of the American defector, wanted to change Frank's plan, which he suspected was only going to take care of Frank, who had defected and now was claiming he wanted to return.. What Simon did to accomplish that was only slowly parceled out to the reader. The same for Frank, I should add. That left me confused as I couldn't exactly follow the action. Nonetheless, the conclusion of the novel was powerful and surprising. Perhaps being in the dark on SImon's plan contributed to that.