Istanbul Passage: A Novel

Joseph Kanon's "Istanbul Passage" is destined to be one of the classic postwar spy novels of our era, eclipsing the author's well regarded "The Good German." The story is exquisitely situated in Istanbul in the winter of 1945-46 between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, between the Soviet Union and the United States, between Europe and Asia, and between the death camps of Nazi Germany and the Promised Land of emerging Israel. These dramatic lines of tension all meet in the ancient city of Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, which is trying to maintain a studied balance as the tectonic plates of international power politics shift. The hero Leon Bauer is a company representative for the American firm R.J. Reynolds who has volunteered to do minor espionage work for an American State Department official working out of the U.S. Consulate. The operation involves getting a Romanian Nazi with important information about the Soviets, but also possibly involved in a hideous war crime against Romanian Jews, through Istanbul and onto an airplane to Washington. During the war, Bauer used the espionage work as cover to help his wife smuggle Jewish refugees to Palestine. But an operation went wrong and a refugee ship sank and hundreds of refugees including many children died in the waters of the Bosporus. As a result, his wife lies inert in a clinic having fallen into a catatonic depression. As the story opens, the American official has asked Bauer to carry out a minor mission; it goes awry, Bauer is ambushed and fires back. The next day he discovers the dead shooter is the State Department official. What happened? This question drives the plot. But first, one comes to realize that the State Department spies are all really just "branch office guys" in over their heads, guys bucking for the right desk job back at the home office in Washington now that the war is won. It is a beautiful metaphor describing generations of American officials dealing with conflicts in distant lands they don't understand, whose scope of action is bounded by the closeted visions of Washington's politically shaped worldviews. What shapes the emotional landscape of the novel is Bauer's relationships with four women: his wife, whose vivacity and liveliness is recalled in flashbacks, an Armenian courtesan who saves Thursdays for him, a middle aged wealthy salon hostess who shares timeless insights of empire with him, and the wife of one of the suspect State Department agents who has grown bored and is looking for possibly something better, or at least something else, and gets involved in a torrid affair with Bauer. The women provide a beautiful coloration to the emotional plot of the novel. Bauer's trusted sidekick is Mihai, a Mossad agent smuggling Jews into Palestine. He now has another derelict freighter crammed with more Jewish refugees tied up at the dock, which has been interned by corrupt Turkish authorities. Bauer gets him money to pay off the Turkish officials and get the ship underway. Throughout the book, Jewish refugees are spectral figures, dead ghosts from the first refugee ship that tragically sank, or ghostlike survivors of the death camps on the second freighter. Just before the plot's espionage climax is revealed, an almost parenthetical revelation shows that Mihai has gotten the refugees through to Palestine. One can imagine that the once spectral figures only seen and heard in the dark are now human beings living in the sunlight again, the deliverance being their resurrection. Powerful. The multi-layered betrayals of the espionage plot are well resolved, a moral test met, and Bauer is left standing in fidelity to his first and last loyalty. Looking back, the shifting, circling relationships between Bauer and the women provide the light and shade on the timeless romantic landscape of this finely crafted tale.

Joseph Kanon is the author of six novels including, Los Alamos, which won the Edgar Award for best first novel; The Good German, which was made into a film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett; The Prodigal Spy and Alibi, which earned Kanon the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers;and Istanbul Passage, his latest novel. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. Kanon was last reported to live in New York City with his wife, literary agent Robin Straus, and their two sons.It was the end of World War II. The Americans and the Russians are vying for dominance in what will become known later as the "Cold War" an era of mistrust; the war is over, everyone is packing up to leave Istanbul. The American's clandestine operation was conducted from the American Consul. It was engaged in disrupting German war supply efforts through the guise of operatives in legitimate businesses like R.J. Reynolds, Commercial Corp and Western Electric. There were others too, humanitarians, passionate for the repatriation of the Jewish refugees with Palestine; clandestine operations that provided illegal passage for them through sea ports on the Bosporus. As the story opens, Leon Bauer and his friend Mihai are proceeding to the sea port for a clandestine pickup of a German. It was arranged by Leon's friend and sometime employer, Tommy, who worked at the American Consul. It was a simple job, pick the German up whisk him away to a safe place and protect him until he is transported out of Turkey by the Americans. That was the plan but not everyone saw the same ending. Leon intercepts the German at the landing; suddenly gun fire erupts, the fire is returned and a dead man is left by the road side above. This begins Leon's ever deepening involvement in uncovering a traitor, protecting the German, hiding from the Russians and avoiding the police and secret police as he struggles with a moral conflict where none of the solutions is a good one.Kanon weaves a complex plot for his protagonist, Leon Bauer. There is intrigue, some mystery a moral dilemma and a touch of romance inside a love story. The characters are engaging and mysterious woven into the sights and sounds of post war Istanbul. The story is good; the writing has a few detractions however. Kanon chose to write using conversational dialog. The style is difficult to navigate, for unlike a real conversation there are no cues from gestures or facial expression. At times it was impossible to determine who was saying what or to properly hear the inflection; entire paragraphs needed to be reread carefully to digest the meaning - sometimes without success. The difficulty with the writing style also contributed to a decidedly confusing awareness of the evolving plot and an understanding of it as Leon solves the puzzles and leaves the reader still puzzled.All in all I thought the novel was good but it would have been terrific if Kanon had simply narrated the work rather than engaging in conversation. Not all readers will have a problem with this style of writing but some will. I would suggest that if you are interested in reading this novel that you take advantage of Amazon's free look, reading some of it to see that you will be okay with the writing style before you buy.I recommend the novel with the above reservations should you wish to add it to your reading list.

No one else seems to have picked up on the author's questionsble approach to his female characters. In this book you have tbe prostitute who has low self esteem and spends most of her time in a kimono that falls open. I don't think much of the plot depended on her. She is just a stereotype.The main female character is Kay who plays the part of the apparently happily married woman who seems to be gagging for an adulterous relationship, a standard character in the other novels I have read by this author. A self- confessed weak character.There is also a very wealthy, and of course beautiful, socialite who was once in a harem whose purpose in the novel is to float about and look nice during the parties that the author likes to enable exposition and plot development (as per some of his other novels).There is also a secretary (of course). Doesn't do much although her husband who gets scant attention - blink and you miss him - turns out to be the mole at the heart of the plot. A good way to disguise whodunnit - keep him utterly in the background.The other main female character says and does nothing. This is the main protagonist's wife who has been traumatised as a result of not realising she is only a weak woman and foolishly gets involved in smuggling Jews to Palestine. She suffers a complete mental breakdown and is in a vegetative state.I cannot believe that in the 21st century authors cannot do better than this with their female characters - and why don't women have much more to say about this state of affairs? Please gives us stronger and non-stereotypical characters.The book as a whole is OK. I like much of what the author writes. As other reviewers have indicated, however, it really is too long. The use of so many italicised Turkish words which one in a thousand readers will understand is a terrible affectation which some editor should have advised against.This book could easily have been so much better.

Having enjoyed Leaving Berlin this was a great disappointment. It does not have a plot, or rather it has a plot far too thin to hang a 100 pages let alone 400. Consequently it is padded out with excruciatingly poor dialogue that would not be out of place in a Mills and Boom romance. It is not enough to call upon tbe exotic setting, the problem here is the absence of story pure and simple. The events at the core of the work are not dramatic enough to sustain the narrative. A really poor novel that needs to be forgotten quickly.

I may have been influenced by the fact that I read this whilst visiting Istanbul for a weekend. It was easy to get lost in the book and feel as if you were there in 1945. The Colonel from Turkey's Secret Police reminded me of the same rank of officer mentioned in Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios. The explanation of the Colonel's real role - defending Turkey's national interest and not solving crimes - was made brilliantly clear and I found the depth of characterisation one of the book's greatest strengths. Other reviewers have criticised the book's complexity which I think is unfair but there were a few passages which could have been more tightly worded. Joseph Kanon and Alan Furst are the only two contemporary writers who can rival Eric Ambler.

I loved this. Kanon's use of dialogue to tell half the story, often with much left unsaid and hints and allusions, can take some getting used to, but in the end I think it draws the reader further in. This novel brings together an intoxicating setting, perfectly drawn, with deeply layered characters and a compelling, haunting plots. The best espionage stories should convey some anger brimming beneath the surface, some darkness in secrets and some sense of melancholy. This book does all of that. I enjoyed Leaving Berlin, but in my view Istanbul Passage surpassed it.

If you love the film "Casablanca" then you will enjoy this novel. Kanon subtly weaves into a gripping plot his knowledge of World War Two politics, with all its intringue, ambiguity and betrayal. The story takes place in Istanbul, in the aftermath of WW2, and the atmosphere he conjures up is reminiscent of The Third Man's Vienna: corruption, greed, and the big powers plotting against each other for influence in a seemingly insignificant place. As ever, his characters are believable, flawed but compelling. You keep turning the pages, captivated by the authenticity of the sordid world Kanon has created. Wholly satisfactory read. I wish Kanon would churn out more like this.