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Istanbul Passage
A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul survived the Second World War as a magnet for refugees and spies, trafficking in secrets and lies rather than soldiers. Expatriate American businessman Leon Bauer was drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs in support of the Allied war effort.
Now, as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of postwar life, Leon is given one last routine assignment. But when the job goes fatally wrong—an exchange of gunfire, a body left in the street, a potential war criminal on his hands—Leon is plunged into a tangle of intrigue, shifting loyalties, and moral uncertainty.
Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon’s conflicted attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt that ultimately threatens his own survival. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to be made?
Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Istanbul Passage is the haunting story of a man swept up in the dawn of the Cold War, of an unexpected love affair, and of a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.
Now, as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of postwar life, Leon is given one last routine assignment. But when the job goes fatally wrong—an exchange of gunfire, a body left in the street, a potential war criminal on his hands—Leon is plunged into a tangle of intrigue, shifting loyalties, and moral uncertainty.
Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon’s conflicted attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt that ultimately threatens his own survival. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to be made?
Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Istanbul Passage is the haunting story of a man swept up in the dawn of the Cold War, of an unexpected love affair, and of a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.
295 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 29, 2012
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December 17, 2018
”You’re so sure somebody’s watching.”
“It’s Istanbul.”
The curtains twitch.
The doorways have eyes.
Nothing happens in Istanbul without someone seeing it. Anything clandestine has to be hidden behind layers of misdirection. There are eyes everywhere in a city of people who know the value of information. World War II has recently ended, but the next war, the Cold War, is already beginning in Istanbul. The Americans, the British, the Israelis, and the Russians are all vying for the last remaining valuable targets out of Germany. Some of them are brought through Istanbul’s harbor.
Leon Bauer is an American civilian who occasionally does jobs for the American government. It is supposed to be a simple job, a pickup and delivery of a person of interest. It turns out to be anything but simple. Shots are fired the moment Bauer makes contact with his person for extraction. He returns fire and hits the person shooting. Later, he finds out that person had been the very person who asked him to go on this job.
Trying to make sense of that forms a Gordian Knot in his mind.
Now what.
Nobody is supposed to know he has this guy, and yet it seems it is fairly common knowledge. The Russians are very interested and are willing to offer a reward for this person to fall into their hands. The Americans want to know why their guy is dead. The Israelis, if they knew about this particular German, would want him wearing a toe tag. Needless to say, Leon is in way over his head, and as he finds out more about the guy he is protecting, he starts to question why he should continue to protect such a man capable of such atrocities.
And yet he does for reasons even he can’t fully understand.
There is a background story about his wife, Anna, who had a psychotic break and has been institutionalized. She is unresponsive, but he continues to go see her as often as he can, except on Thursday afternoons when he goes to see Marina.
”’I haven’t been with anyone today. All right?’ She put her hand on his crotch, rubbing him. ‘I always save today for you. You know that.’ Stroking him, the lie like another hand on him, so that he was hard instantly, excited by both, unable to separate them.”
It is the business of whores to lie and for men to believe them. Leon feels guilty that he visits Marina, but as he climbs the stairs to her place, he starts to feel his knees go weak and the butterflies begin to circle in his stomach. It doesn’t matter if he needs it, if he desires it. He has to accept the guilt. He feels even worse when he meets Kay, the wife of one of his colleagues, and sparks fly as if Vulcan started shaping a new sword on his anvil.
Joseph Kanon takes us into the twisting back alleys of Istanbul and into the plush dinner parties of the ex-pats. Leon finds himself playing hide and seek with the most powerful people in Istanbul with no way to know who to trust or even who is on which side from moment to moment. Now that the war is over, the tenuous alliances formed during the war are starting to erode, and a new kind of conflict is just beginning to blossom. On the surface, things are calm in Istanbul, but just like the Bosphorus, beneath the surface things are seething with activity.
It has been a while since I’ve read Kanon, but I have to say I really enjoyed this mature, intelligent tale of spies and counterspies. It turned out to be a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
“It’s Istanbul.”
The curtains twitch.
The doorways have eyes.
Nothing happens in Istanbul without someone seeing it. Anything clandestine has to be hidden behind layers of misdirection. There are eyes everywhere in a city of people who know the value of information. World War II has recently ended, but the next war, the Cold War, is already beginning in Istanbul. The Americans, the British, the Israelis, and the Russians are all vying for the last remaining valuable targets out of Germany. Some of them are brought through Istanbul’s harbor.
Leon Bauer is an American civilian who occasionally does jobs for the American government. It is supposed to be a simple job, a pickup and delivery of a person of interest. It turns out to be anything but simple. Shots are fired the moment Bauer makes contact with his person for extraction. He returns fire and hits the person shooting. Later, he finds out that person had been the very person who asked him to go on this job.
Trying to make sense of that forms a Gordian Knot in his mind.
Now what.
Nobody is supposed to know he has this guy, and yet it seems it is fairly common knowledge. The Russians are very interested and are willing to offer a reward for this person to fall into their hands. The Americans want to know why their guy is dead. The Israelis, if they knew about this particular German, would want him wearing a toe tag. Needless to say, Leon is in way over his head, and as he finds out more about the guy he is protecting, he starts to question why he should continue to protect such a man capable of such atrocities.
And yet he does for reasons even he can’t fully understand.
There is a background story about his wife, Anna, who had a psychotic break and has been institutionalized. She is unresponsive, but he continues to go see her as often as he can, except on Thursday afternoons when he goes to see Marina.
”’I haven’t been with anyone today. All right?’ She put her hand on his crotch, rubbing him. ‘I always save today for you. You know that.’ Stroking him, the lie like another hand on him, so that he was hard instantly, excited by both, unable to separate them.”
It is the business of whores to lie and for men to believe them. Leon feels guilty that he visits Marina, but as he climbs the stairs to her place, he starts to feel his knees go weak and the butterflies begin to circle in his stomach. It doesn’t matter if he needs it, if he desires it. He has to accept the guilt. He feels even worse when he meets Kay, the wife of one of his colleagues, and sparks fly as if Vulcan started shaping a new sword on his anvil.
Joseph Kanon takes us into the twisting back alleys of Istanbul and into the plush dinner parties of the ex-pats. Leon finds himself playing hide and seek with the most powerful people in Istanbul with no way to know who to trust or even who is on which side from moment to moment. Now that the war is over, the tenuous alliances formed during the war are starting to erode, and a new kind of conflict is just beginning to blossom. On the surface, things are calm in Istanbul, but just like the Bosphorus, beneath the surface things are seething with activity.
It has been a while since I’ve read Kanon, but I have to say I really enjoyed this mature, intelligent tale of spies and counterspies. It turned out to be a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
November 13, 2012
It was only ok. I was going on holiday to Istanbul and wanted something to read. I thought this would be perfect - a thriller le Carre style set in the very city I was visiting. Well, I enjoyed the referneces to the Hagia Sophia and the Mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent, the crossing of the Golden Horn and the fishermen on the Galata Bridge. All that rang true.
I could not, however, get on board with Kanon's style of writing. It read like a movie script, or should I say, a wannabe movie script. There was more dialogue than description which, in retrospect, was actually quite a good idea - fast paced and exciting. The way in which they spoke though...oh dear - short brusque sentences that lacked punctuation. And it wasn't just one character who spoke like this, it was whole blimmin' lot of them. It really put me off. I thought that the characters were all the same, I couldn't feel for them particularly, and I spent so much enegery psotitvely disliking the way in which they were portrayed through their conversation that I didn't have time to really get to grips with the plot.
What I did establish, however, was that there were elements of the exciting and mysterious about it. It was fast paced and sometimes gripping. Not really my cup of tea, but I can see how it would appeal to others.
I could not, however, get on board with Kanon's style of writing. It read like a movie script, or should I say, a wannabe movie script. There was more dialogue than description which, in retrospect, was actually quite a good idea - fast paced and exciting. The way in which they spoke though...oh dear - short brusque sentences that lacked punctuation. And it wasn't just one character who spoke like this, it was whole blimmin' lot of them. It really put me off. I thought that the characters were all the same, I couldn't feel for them particularly, and I spent so much enegery psotitvely disliking the way in which they were portrayed through their conversation that I didn't have time to really get to grips with the plot.
What I did establish, however, was that there were elements of the exciting and mysterious about it. It was fast paced and sometimes gripping. Not really my cup of tea, but I can see how it would appeal to others.
July 17, 2012
A book I was savoring... it's that good.
There are parallels to Graham Greene and John le Carre here... more of the former compared to the latter, with a bit of Jenkens thrown in. The fantastic never happens, the predictable occurs (and because this is a thriller you may hope it does not)- but the characters are so well rounded, so deeply camouflaged from themselves, as the Californians out there may say "conflicted," that all the story (and I mean all apart from solid history) is character driven.
What a damn fine read.
Nw, does it help that I've hung around Istanbul? Yes. But not more than having been around Berlin helps with John le Carre's work - more of a secret pleasure, confirming the sights and sounds, the feel of the city.
I did miss smelling Istanbul - something you cannot escape. At one point he does describe the contents of the tide between the hull of a ship and the dock - that's the smell that pervades most of the year. But to be fair, this is written in winter so perhaps Kanon wasn't there in summer.
It's not a big deal. That's about the only criticism I have. Pathetic at that.
There are parallels to Graham Greene and John le Carre here... more of the former compared to the latter, with a bit of Jenkens thrown in. The fantastic never happens, the predictable occurs (and because this is a thriller you may hope it does not)- but the characters are so well rounded, so deeply camouflaged from themselves, as the Californians out there may say "conflicted," that all the story (and I mean all apart from solid history) is character driven.
What a damn fine read.
Nw, does it help that I've hung around Istanbul? Yes. But not more than having been around Berlin helps with John le Carre's work - more of a secret pleasure, confirming the sights and sounds, the feel of the city.
I did miss smelling Istanbul - something you cannot escape. At one point he does describe the contents of the tide between the hull of a ship and the dock - that's the smell that pervades most of the year. But to be fair, this is written in winter so perhaps Kanon wasn't there in summer.
It's not a big deal. That's about the only criticism I have. Pathetic at that.
May 5, 2024
I enjoyed this book. The last of my Madeira holiday reads. The story connected Romania where I had lived and worked for 3 years and Turkey where I had worked and vacationed.
The story is set late in 1945 at the end of the war. Leon Bauer works in Istanbul ( almost a Humphrey Bogart character). He is given a last job to help a Romanian refugee into Istanbul and then escape to the West. But the operation goes wrong and Bauer then has to live on his wits. Building a relationship with the Romanian who we learn was probably instrumental in a massacre of Jews.
Clever story. Good characters and writing. Need to read more by this Author and holiday in Madeira of course😉👍
The story is set late in 1945 at the end of the war. Leon Bauer works in Istanbul ( almost a Humphrey Bogart character). He is given a last job to help a Romanian refugee into Istanbul and then escape to the West. But the operation goes wrong and Bauer then has to live on his wits. Building a relationship with the Romanian who we learn was probably instrumental in a massacre of Jews.
Clever story. Good characters and writing. Need to read more by this Author and holiday in Madeira of course😉👍
June 29, 2013
All right, I'm officially a convert. This is my first experience of Joseph Kanon, and it was well worth it.
If you are going to write about the morally ambiguous world of spycraft but also give readers someone to root for, you need an author who can create characters who may never be what they seem, yet have some endearing qualities -- even if, as in one case in this novel, they happen to be a former Nazi-ally butcher of Jews.
The story revolves around Leon Bauer, an American businessman (tobacco, of course) living in Instanbul in 1945 right after the end of the war. He has already begun doing some odd job assignments for Tommy King at the American embassy, ferrying papers to the capital in Ankara and similar work. Now he has been asked to pick up a mysterious refugee and deliver him through to the West, a Romanian he knows little about.
When the appointed pickup finally occurs, shots ring out and Leon is suddenly fighting for his life and is bound to the future of his Romanian, who manages to survive.
What follows from that is a tale in which you can never be sure who is siding with whom. The Russians have an interest in his client, the Turkish police are investigating the shooting, the Emniyet, or Turkish secret police, are keeping an eye on everyone, personified by the smoothly sagacious Altan, and Leon has to figure out what to do with his prisoner, why his former boss is dead, and then why yet another American official is killed.
In the meantime, he visits his wife Anna, who is in a clinic, locked into her own mind after a horrific sinking of a Jewish refugee rescue ship left her permanently imprisoned behind her blank face. And of course there is a love interest, Kay Bishop, the American consul's wife, who may or may not be what she seems as well.
Unlike the books of Robert Ludlum, where the characters were often just cardboard cutouts to move the action along, each of Kanon's people has a backstory that you are drawn into, even if you don't like them, and the city itself becomes another character, with its spires, mosques, trams, boats, bazaars and bridges.
Please join me in becoming a fan.
June 21, 2012
Hard to imagine any other setting for Kanon’s historical thriller, Istanbul Passage. Post World War II spy intrigues, war criminals seeking new friends, allegiances shifting yet again between America and Russia, battered Jews looking for refuge, illicit romance, the legacy of harems and the labyrinthine streets opening onto the wide waterway connecting two continents. Where better than Istanbul to depict the mire of ambiguous compromises, the sinuous balancing of countries against each other by those too crafty to reveal themselves, the naïve light of idealism shadowing into something dingy but workable? An ancient city that has known many masters and seen so much.
At one point a character in Kanon’s book points out that the Westerners view Istanbul as a bridge between Europe and Asia, but for the Turks, and for the Ottomans in their day, it is the center, not a place to pass through. That tension pervades the novel. The plot revolves around characters seeking passage through Istanbul to escape horrors behind them, either of their own or others’ making. Other characters strive to maintain Turkey’s tenuous hold on living in the center. The main character, Leon, may make a passage or he may join the centuries of tangled roots clinging to Istanbul. In the process he makes a rite of passage through moral compromises and idealistic choices, betrayals and loyalties, that is so subtle and sophisticated the reader never loses interest.
Leon, we hope along with him, is a good man—at least an ordinary man like us who can rise to the occasion when called upon. He’s easy to identify with, but what a tangled mess he gets into without there being an identifiable moment that tripped him up. We know we could have gotten there just as easily. He clings to the notion of doing right—but right for whom? His country? An adrenalin high? Displaced Jews? His wife? During the war, spying and death were easy to justify, but what now?
Then there’s Alexei. Not a good man, not ever, we fear. The classic bad guy, torturing Jews out of racial hatred, inherent badness, a man who kills without remorse. Why should Leon help such a man? Does he have information worth preserving? Does every man deserve to live? Does Leon find it impossible to be responsible for his death—no more reason than that fundamentally moral position? Leon’s most morally admirable friend tells him to turn Alexei over to his enemies who will kill him. Then glimmers of some other sort of man show through as Kanon develops Alexei. Do we feel sympathy for him? Was there a time when he was good but that is past, or do men, like cities, carry their layers forever existent simultaneously? It’s a cliché, but life is complicated. Kanon excels at making us feel that in our bones. Complicated, but also exciting.
Even the trees in Istanbul Passage tell the story—along the Bosphorus the Judas trees will bloom again, flowers hiding the betrayals. Is that enough to make life worth living? This suspenseful, full-bodied novel will hold you in a thoughtful embrace.
At one point a character in Kanon’s book points out that the Westerners view Istanbul as a bridge between Europe and Asia, but for the Turks, and for the Ottomans in their day, it is the center, not a place to pass through. That tension pervades the novel. The plot revolves around characters seeking passage through Istanbul to escape horrors behind them, either of their own or others’ making. Other characters strive to maintain Turkey’s tenuous hold on living in the center. The main character, Leon, may make a passage or he may join the centuries of tangled roots clinging to Istanbul. In the process he makes a rite of passage through moral compromises and idealistic choices, betrayals and loyalties, that is so subtle and sophisticated the reader never loses interest.
Leon, we hope along with him, is a good man—at least an ordinary man like us who can rise to the occasion when called upon. He’s easy to identify with, but what a tangled mess he gets into without there being an identifiable moment that tripped him up. We know we could have gotten there just as easily. He clings to the notion of doing right—but right for whom? His country? An adrenalin high? Displaced Jews? His wife? During the war, spying and death were easy to justify, but what now?
Then there’s Alexei. Not a good man, not ever, we fear. The classic bad guy, torturing Jews out of racial hatred, inherent badness, a man who kills without remorse. Why should Leon help such a man? Does he have information worth preserving? Does every man deserve to live? Does Leon find it impossible to be responsible for his death—no more reason than that fundamentally moral position? Leon’s most morally admirable friend tells him to turn Alexei over to his enemies who will kill him. Then glimmers of some other sort of man show through as Kanon develops Alexei. Do we feel sympathy for him? Was there a time when he was good but that is past, or do men, like cities, carry their layers forever existent simultaneously? It’s a cliché, but life is complicated. Kanon excels at making us feel that in our bones. Complicated, but also exciting.
Even the trees in Istanbul Passage tell the story—along the Bosphorus the Judas trees will bloom again, flowers hiding the betrayals. Is that enough to make life worth living? This suspenseful, full-bodied novel will hold you in a thoughtful embrace.
June 27, 2012
A John LeCarre wanna be, but the character is not as complex as George Smiley. Not sure I even like the main character or his "love interest." The most compelling character is his brain addled wife, but, unfortunately she does little except provide a room for exposition. How could an accidental spy be so good at what is portrayed in other books as a craft? It kind of demeans the whole profession and makes it seem like any intelligent person could double deal, elude tails, create alibis, etc. I didn't believe it.
However, it is not a 1 star review because the author does create a compelling character...Istanbul after WWII. I wanted to visit, study learn more; clearly the author loves the city.
Unfortunately, some scenes felt like they had been written so the movie rights could be sold, ie obvious and overwrought, and not believable.
Wish I hadn't paid $13 for it, wish I hadn't stayed up at night to finish it (hope against hope that the ending would justify the rest of the book), wish I'd believed the 2 star amazon reviewer.
However, it is not a 1 star review because the author does create a compelling character...Istanbul after WWII. I wanted to visit, study learn more; clearly the author loves the city.
Unfortunately, some scenes felt like they had been written so the movie rights could be sold, ie obvious and overwrought, and not believable.
Wish I hadn't paid $13 for it, wish I hadn't stayed up at night to finish it (hope against hope that the ending would justify the rest of the book), wish I'd believed the 2 star amazon reviewer.
July 28, 2012
Istanbul, after the war, trying to remain a neutral territory becomes a hotbed of rumor and intelligence, filled with various countries agents and spies. Jews are still trying to find a safe haven and escape from the racial bias that has followed them, even into this country. Into this climate of tension and paranoia comes an ordinary man, Leon, who is asked to rise above his comfort level and perform a job. What a horrible mess he soon finds himself involved in, because he is actually trapped in this city by the condition of his wife who is in a catatonic state and institutionalized. At times I did feel that so many things were going on and that so many meetings were being arranged that certain conversations dragged. Yet the book as a whole was extremely well done, interesting and the author's vivid descriptions of the city a complete joy to read.
November 30, 2018
I'm working on my own new novel set in Istanbul, also a thriller, so I am reading other books set there. I was glad to learn about Joseph Kanon's Istanbul Passage. He really captures the place, almost everyone has said. But more than that, his writing is smart, and engaging without being so action-driven that it becomes predictable. This book is not predictable. I wasn't sure until the last paragraph or two what would be the protagonist's decision. Without any spoiler, I can say that the scene where two guys are hanging on ropes over the side of a ship is one of the most exciting scenes I've read for a long time.
June 30, 2012
A man, filled with good intentions, is caught in the jaws of the competing and intersecting interests of global powers in Istanbul after World War II. Istanbul is the bridge between north and south in Europe, and between West and East. It has always been a place of great intrigue and mystery, filled with industrialists and spies. By setting his mystery here after the war, Kanon capitalizes on the reader’s sense of dislocation. We are familiar with the war, but we know little about what happened shortly after, when hundreds of thousands of Jews needed resettlement from Reich-controlled countries and war-time spies were tying up loose ends, chasing double agents and moles.
Istanbul was a port through which some of the refugees streamed, bought from their oppressors by well-meaning Jewish citizens with the intention of giving them passage to some other country where they could set up a new life. Palestine was one of these destinations, by no means the obvious choice.
This is the first novel of Kanon’s I’ve read, but I have taken note of his books and know that his particular interest has been the war years in Europe. He flawlessly captures that insular American consulate feeling, the wide-eyed naiveté gradually devolving into a slight disdain fueled by lack of understanding. The intrigue of a city of spies comes through clearly as well, the confusion and the calculation as one undercover spy after another is picked off, leaving the innocent (and the reader) to figure out what happened and who is responsible and what can be done.
Kanon’s style is telegraphic, abrupt, pointillist when describing a man’s thoughts…rather like the way we talk in our own heads when walking down the street. We don’t think in complete sentences when we are noticing street action. Only words and phrases come to us: red hat, sidling walk, cold, sun. Together these can add up to a larger understanding that we must explain in sentences to another. And there was my difficulty. Not only was Kanon noticing and attaching value to things differently than I might have, he didn’t always give me a complete sentence in which to process his progress. I got the gist, and I got used to it, but it certainly added to the mystery of the piece that I couldn’t completely trust the judgment of the main character and I suspected everyone. The mystery his language produced was akin to that fog of incomprehension his characters were laboring under—who knew what and when, and who held the cards? After my initial reserve I entered fully into Kanon’s vision, and he managed to crank the stress level quite high enough to impel this reader through to the end.
Istanbul comes through clearly: colorful, exotic, dangerous. The sly knowingness in the Turkish character makes the people attractive and descriptions of the city and the Bosporus are irresistible. Makes you want to book passage. Now.
Istanbul was a port through which some of the refugees streamed, bought from their oppressors by well-meaning Jewish citizens with the intention of giving them passage to some other country where they could set up a new life. Palestine was one of these destinations, by no means the obvious choice.
This is the first novel of Kanon’s I’ve read, but I have taken note of his books and know that his particular interest has been the war years in Europe. He flawlessly captures that insular American consulate feeling, the wide-eyed naiveté gradually devolving into a slight disdain fueled by lack of understanding. The intrigue of a city of spies comes through clearly as well, the confusion and the calculation as one undercover spy after another is picked off, leaving the innocent (and the reader) to figure out what happened and who is responsible and what can be done.
Kanon’s style is telegraphic, abrupt, pointillist when describing a man’s thoughts…rather like the way we talk in our own heads when walking down the street. We don’t think in complete sentences when we are noticing street action. Only words and phrases come to us: red hat, sidling walk, cold, sun. Together these can add up to a larger understanding that we must explain in sentences to another. And there was my difficulty. Not only was Kanon noticing and attaching value to things differently than I might have, he didn’t always give me a complete sentence in which to process his progress. I got the gist, and I got used to it, but it certainly added to the mystery of the piece that I couldn’t completely trust the judgment of the main character and I suspected everyone. The mystery his language produced was akin to that fog of incomprehension his characters were laboring under—who knew what and when, and who held the cards? After my initial reserve I entered fully into Kanon’s vision, and he managed to crank the stress level quite high enough to impel this reader through to the end.
Istanbul comes through clearly: colorful, exotic, dangerous. The sly knowingness in the Turkish character makes the people attractive and descriptions of the city and the Bosporus are irresistible. Makes you want to book passage. Now.
May 25, 2019
This is not a typical spy story. The author teases us into the tempo of a Bolero Dance with ever so subtle observations, actions, thoughts in short sentences, brief phrases...slide-stepping smoothly over the scape of Istanbul after WWII - until the finale where our dancers collapse.
So many dance partners (opposing government agencies) with conflicting purposes disrupts the harmony frequently, adding clashes of conflict and missteps. There will be more than one gunshot.
American Leon Bauer, tobacco man, agrees to perform a favor here and there, hoping to stay neutral or in the shadows. Is that possible? No. At a gathering after one man is killed, Lily, former harem member, says: "...he was with the American-what do they call it, secret service, like the British, I suppose...everybody was a little, weren't they? During the war...But it's interesting, no? Spies. Spying on what? Each other...One death. How important, really? In the scheme of things."
That first death is just the beginning of deep waters for Leon. The action gets intense. A very good read.
So many dance partners (opposing government agencies) with conflicting purposes disrupts the harmony frequently, adding clashes of conflict and missteps. There will be more than one gunshot.
American Leon Bauer, tobacco man, agrees to perform a favor here and there, hoping to stay neutral or in the shadows. Is that possible? No. At a gathering after one man is killed, Lily, former harem member, says: "...he was with the American-what do they call it, secret service, like the British, I suppose...everybody was a little, weren't they? During the war...But it's interesting, no? Spies. Spying on what? Each other...One death. How important, really? In the scheme of things."
That first death is just the beginning of deep waters for Leon. The action gets intense. A very good read.
April 6, 2017
Intrigue, Romance, and Betrayal in Post-World War II Istanbul
Some books build slowly, and just as you begin to wonder whether you have the energy to finish them, you discover you’re a captive and no longer able to put them aside. Then they build and build, until you find yourself on the last page, out of breath from the frenzied rush to the end. Istanbul Passage is one of those books.
Kanon, born in 1946, writes spy stories about the period immediately following World War II and before the Korean War (1945-50). Istanbul Passage relates the tale of Leon Bauer, an American businessman whose poor eyesight had kept him out of the war. In compensation — seeking his own war, really — Leon has persuaded a friend of his in the U.S. consulate to hire him for special espionage assignments, helping smuggle Jews out of Romania and on to Palestine. Now, in 1945, Leon receives a different sort of assignment, which involves helping to smuggle a high-value Romanian intelligence target through Istanbul and on to safety in the U.S. But everything quickly goes wrong. Leon finds himself shooting a man to death in a firefight, and the Romanian turns out to be a war criminal at least partly responsible for one of the most notorious massacres of Jews outside the German and Polish camps.
Istanbul Passage is a complex and finely written tale. You can’t read the book without getting to know Leon Bauer — and Istanbul — as deeply as though you had experienced the story yourself. Joseph Kanon is one fine writer!
Kanon ran two major New York publishing houses before he began writing in 1995 when he was nearly 50. His five previous novels — Los Alamos (1997), The Prodigal Spy (1998), The Good German (2001), Alibi (2005), and Stardust (2009) — have won widespread acclaim, and deservedly so, as I’ve noted in my reviews.
(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)
Some books build slowly, and just as you begin to wonder whether you have the energy to finish them, you discover you’re a captive and no longer able to put them aside. Then they build and build, until you find yourself on the last page, out of breath from the frenzied rush to the end. Istanbul Passage is one of those books.
Kanon, born in 1946, writes spy stories about the period immediately following World War II and before the Korean War (1945-50). Istanbul Passage relates the tale of Leon Bauer, an American businessman whose poor eyesight had kept him out of the war. In compensation — seeking his own war, really — Leon has persuaded a friend of his in the U.S. consulate to hire him for special espionage assignments, helping smuggle Jews out of Romania and on to Palestine. Now, in 1945, Leon receives a different sort of assignment, which involves helping to smuggle a high-value Romanian intelligence target through Istanbul and on to safety in the U.S. But everything quickly goes wrong. Leon finds himself shooting a man to death in a firefight, and the Romanian turns out to be a war criminal at least partly responsible for one of the most notorious massacres of Jews outside the German and Polish camps.
Istanbul Passage is a complex and finely written tale. You can’t read the book without getting to know Leon Bauer — and Istanbul — as deeply as though you had experienced the story yourself. Joseph Kanon is one fine writer!
Kanon ran two major New York publishing houses before he began writing in 1995 when he was nearly 50. His five previous novels — Los Alamos (1997), The Prodigal Spy (1998), The Good German (2001), Alibi (2005), and Stardust (2009) — have won widespread acclaim, and deservedly so, as I’ve noted in my reviews.
(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)
November 7, 2014
Despite the exquisite portraiture of post WWII Istanbul and a gripping plot, I found the terse dialogue distracting and insipid. Withholding information is a key component of an exciting mystery, but if you have to reread the dialogue just to determine who is talking, you've taken the conceit too far. The one, two, three, four and five word sentences made me feel as if I were reading a film noir script. Comparatively speaking, Kanon makes Dashiell Hammett look like Woody Allen.
November 27, 2022
Like a 1940s black & white movie.
July 9, 2012
Joseph Kanon has set several previous novels in mid- or late 1940s, which plays to one of his most tangible strengths--convincingly depicting a place and time almost frozen in amber. His plots also have picked up a fraught event in history (e.g., the Manhattan Project in LOS ALAMOS, post-war U.S. occupation in THE GOOD GERMAN and the growing anti-Communist hysteria in Hollywood in STARDUST) and put convincingly real characters, men and women, in motion in that specific and tense historical context.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE highlights the exotic locale of a neutral country juxtaposed between Europe and Asia, between the ancient and the modern. And it’s set during the months following WW II when a “hot” war is gradually being superseded by a Cold War and the spies are all putting on new camouflage. (“You couldn’t fight the next war until you’d lied about the last one” is one keen observation.)
American expat Leon Bauer, a contract intelligence operative for the U.S., takes a routine assignment to pick up and shelter a defector, but unexpectedly finds himself dodging bullets on the waterfront. The “package” turns out to be a morally despicable leader of the murderous Romanian Iron Guard, responsible for the massacre of Jews. Leon finds himself trying to outwit the police, an oily agent of Emniyet (the Turkish secret police), thuggish KGB types and his own consulate--all to protect a war criminal entrusted to him without his prior consent, an intelligence "hot potato" for this amateur spook.
I had two major problems with the novel. First, Leon’s actions never seemed based on a coherent motivation. He had a hundred reasons to divest himself of the repellent “Alexei” and almost none for putting himself and his “mad,” hospitalized Jewish wife in peril. Second, Kanon’s way of doing dialogue was nerve-wracking: all stutter-steps and fragments and strange rhythms, almost as if none of the multi-lingual characters had native languages of their own, much one in common. The central moral issue has some resonance: “What do you do … when there’s no right thing to do. Just the wrong thing. Either way.” However, I ended the book still feeling like Leon would have spared himself the tense yet tedious “who do I trust?” chess game and stayed a dependable pawn instead of trying to be a knight.
In some indirect ways, ISTANBUL PASSAGE reminded me of John le Carré's THE NIGHT MANAGER (1993)--which is a far better novel in every way.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE highlights the exotic locale of a neutral country juxtaposed between Europe and Asia, between the ancient and the modern. And it’s set during the months following WW II when a “hot” war is gradually being superseded by a Cold War and the spies are all putting on new camouflage. (“You couldn’t fight the next war until you’d lied about the last one” is one keen observation.)
American expat Leon Bauer, a contract intelligence operative for the U.S., takes a routine assignment to pick up and shelter a defector, but unexpectedly finds himself dodging bullets on the waterfront. The “package” turns out to be a morally despicable leader of the murderous Romanian Iron Guard, responsible for the massacre of Jews. Leon finds himself trying to outwit the police, an oily agent of Emniyet (the Turkish secret police), thuggish KGB types and his own consulate--all to protect a war criminal entrusted to him without his prior consent, an intelligence "hot potato" for this amateur spook.
I had two major problems with the novel. First, Leon’s actions never seemed based on a coherent motivation. He had a hundred reasons to divest himself of the repellent “Alexei” and almost none for putting himself and his “mad,” hospitalized Jewish wife in peril. Second, Kanon’s way of doing dialogue was nerve-wracking: all stutter-steps and fragments and strange rhythms, almost as if none of the multi-lingual characters had native languages of their own, much one in common. The central moral issue has some resonance: “What do you do … when there’s no right thing to do. Just the wrong thing. Either way.” However, I ended the book still feeling like Leon would have spared himself the tense yet tedious “who do I trust?” chess game and stayed a dependable pawn instead of trying to be a knight.
In some indirect ways, ISTANBUL PASSAGE reminded me of John le Carré's THE NIGHT MANAGER (1993)--which is a far better novel in every way.
July 19, 2012
I really wanted to like this book. It has a decent plot, and an interesting setting. I turned out to not be a fan of this writer's style. This book didn't flow for me, it was a chore to read.
December 14, 2020
After stumbling across Joseph Kanon's terse post WW-II novels, I've become obsessed. I've bought his entire backlist, plus his latest release, and am reading my way through them with delight and amazement at how much he can pack into a single sentence.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE builds on his prior accounts of morally conflicted men plunged into morally ambiguous circumstances. The years directly after the war are ripe for exploration, but most authors tend to ignore it in favor of the war itself. Kanon excels at finding his stories in the crevices of uncertainty that followed the horrors of the global conflict.
Here, he brings us to the enigmatic city of Istanbul, straddling West and East, allegedly neutral during the war but not uninvolved. Allied companies seized advantage of the city's unique trading position as a staging ground to barter for commodities, keeping vital resources out of the Axis' hands. Espionage was a necessary vice, often practiced at international parties held in the converted seraglios of legendary sultans.
Leon is a tobacco businessman who moonlights as a U.S. covert messenger. Nothing too dangerous, mostly running secret papers and assisting Mossad to evacuate displaced surviving Jews fleeing the ashes of Europe. His German-born Jewish wife Anna is interred in a sanatorium, having suffered a nervous collapse after the sinking of a refugee ship. With the loss of his wife, who's alive but also dead to him, Leon wanders in a netherworld that mirrors Istanbul itself, under upheaval as the Allied networks that made the city essential during the war begin to break apart.
When a clandestine operation to fetch a double-traitor Romanian who may be carrying valuable intelligence goes horribly wrong, Leon finds himself forced to confront the nebulous world both within and without. He has to safeguard a man responsible for unspeakable crimes, betraying his own dedication to his incapacitated wife and jaded Mossad friend, while extricating himself from an increasingly fraught snare laid by the Soviets, the Americans, and the Turks to catch the man in his custody. When the troubled redheaded wife of a colleague enters the picture, Leon must also decide what his future should be - if he manages to survive his past and his present.
Kanon evokes the allure of Istanbul with intimacy. He knows this city, its luminous tourist sights and seedy back alleys. He's also a master at conjuring the undercurrents of betrayal and opportunism running rife under its surface at this time in history, where, with the Nazis defeated, the Allies initiated yet another war: the decades-long cold estrangement.
Nothing in a Kanon novel is flourish. He's painstakingly spare. Yet he manages to convey the very duality of human nature in his books, our capacity for heroism and abomination; in this novel, he captures the hypocrisy of an era when the very heroes turned on each other. Leon is deeply flawed, trapped by his own circumstances, unable to tear free of what binds him yet yearning for an elusive peace. Though Kanon's novels are predominantly male, he writes his women with equal candor. His female characters are complex, fallible. And his dialogue is always superb.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE lingers after it's finished. It makes you think. I can't imagine a higher accolade for a writer.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE builds on his prior accounts of morally conflicted men plunged into morally ambiguous circumstances. The years directly after the war are ripe for exploration, but most authors tend to ignore it in favor of the war itself. Kanon excels at finding his stories in the crevices of uncertainty that followed the horrors of the global conflict.
Here, he brings us to the enigmatic city of Istanbul, straddling West and East, allegedly neutral during the war but not uninvolved. Allied companies seized advantage of the city's unique trading position as a staging ground to barter for commodities, keeping vital resources out of the Axis' hands. Espionage was a necessary vice, often practiced at international parties held in the converted seraglios of legendary sultans.
Leon is a tobacco businessman who moonlights as a U.S. covert messenger. Nothing too dangerous, mostly running secret papers and assisting Mossad to evacuate displaced surviving Jews fleeing the ashes of Europe. His German-born Jewish wife Anna is interred in a sanatorium, having suffered a nervous collapse after the sinking of a refugee ship. With the loss of his wife, who's alive but also dead to him, Leon wanders in a netherworld that mirrors Istanbul itself, under upheaval as the Allied networks that made the city essential during the war begin to break apart.
When a clandestine operation to fetch a double-traitor Romanian who may be carrying valuable intelligence goes horribly wrong, Leon finds himself forced to confront the nebulous world both within and without. He has to safeguard a man responsible for unspeakable crimes, betraying his own dedication to his incapacitated wife and jaded Mossad friend, while extricating himself from an increasingly fraught snare laid by the Soviets, the Americans, and the Turks to catch the man in his custody. When the troubled redheaded wife of a colleague enters the picture, Leon must also decide what his future should be - if he manages to survive his past and his present.
Kanon evokes the allure of Istanbul with intimacy. He knows this city, its luminous tourist sights and seedy back alleys. He's also a master at conjuring the undercurrents of betrayal and opportunism running rife under its surface at this time in history, where, with the Nazis defeated, the Allies initiated yet another war: the decades-long cold estrangement.
Nothing in a Kanon novel is flourish. He's painstakingly spare. Yet he manages to convey the very duality of human nature in his books, our capacity for heroism and abomination; in this novel, he captures the hypocrisy of an era when the very heroes turned on each other. Leon is deeply flawed, trapped by his own circumstances, unable to tear free of what binds him yet yearning for an elusive peace. Though Kanon's novels are predominantly male, he writes his women with equal candor. His female characters are complex, fallible. And his dialogue is always superb.
ISTANBUL PASSAGE lingers after it's finished. It makes you think. I can't imagine a higher accolade for a writer.
February 25, 2013
I admire Kanon's novels; at his best as in "The Good German" he combines suspense, interesting characters and a great gift for background and setting. While "Istanbul Passage" is good at providing an interesting and unusual historical context (Istanbul in 1945, sending Jewish refugees to Palestine, and the start of the Cold War), this book gets off to a rather slow start, with a lot of meandering dialogue. A major problem with the book is its style - an excess of terse, clipped, narrative and dialogue in which all characters frequentgly speak in exactly the same mannered way e.g. "Such concern. So where to start?The wolf at the door. But still, thank God, the Jews to ahte. So, the Legion of Archangel Michael..." This gets monotonous after a while.
Yet the book steadily improves from the haflway mark as the tension and moral dilemma faced by its hero start to kick it. Its the repetitive style and rather drawnout start that prevent it being up to Kamen's usual very high standard.
Yet the book steadily improves from the haflway mark as the tension and moral dilemma faced by its hero start to kick it. Its the repetitive style and rather drawnout start that prevent it being up to Kamen's usual very high standard.
September 11, 2014
Okay -- I must be on my one of my "softie" streaks -- two 4 star books within a few days.
But any book that compels me enough to read it in two days tends to beg for one more star than that three star midpoint. On that basis alone, Istanbul Passage is getting my nod.
I don't read this genre a lot -- mystery, crime, adventure -- not sure where the categorization pros slot this one. Thus, I'm not sure how well the writing stands up to those standards. I did find the phrases (versus sentences) disconcerting at times, but I certainly felt immersed in the setting and will continue for several days on Internet background searches for history and pictures.
Disconcerting was learning of the historical events that underlay the novel, specifically pogroms in Rumania ~1939-41 and the sinking of a refugee ship in a major humanitarian disaster. The novel rather presumes a knowledge of those events, which I did not have prior to reading it and had to find by doing some research.
The setting is nicely exotic, the characters almost believable, and the actions challenging to the reader's assessment of values and morals.
Some compare the novel to the writings of John le Carré and Graham Greene. I don't know those authors well enough to make authoritative comparison myself, but I think of them as masters -- not quite a level I'd assign Koran. I would put him alongside Steig Larsson and the authors of Three Seconds for fast paced readability and enjoyment of an unfolding plot with well-formed main characters. (It might have been nice if some of the secondary or especially the tertiary characters [Barbara King, Dorothy,...] had had a little more development.)
But any book that compels me enough to read it in two days tends to beg for one more star than that three star midpoint. On that basis alone, Istanbul Passage is getting my nod.
I don't read this genre a lot -- mystery, crime, adventure -- not sure where the categorization pros slot this one. Thus, I'm not sure how well the writing stands up to those standards. I did find the phrases (versus sentences) disconcerting at times, but I certainly felt immersed in the setting and will continue for several days on Internet background searches for history and pictures.
Disconcerting was learning of the historical events that underlay the novel, specifically pogroms in Rumania ~1939-41 and the sinking of a refugee ship in a major humanitarian disaster. The novel rather presumes a knowledge of those events, which I did not have prior to reading it and had to find by doing some research.
The setting is nicely exotic, the characters almost believable, and the actions challenging to the reader's assessment of values and morals.
Some compare the novel to the writings of John le Carré and Graham Greene. I don't know those authors well enough to make authoritative comparison myself, but I think of them as masters -- not quite a level I'd assign Koran. I would put him alongside Steig Larsson and the authors of Three Seconds for fast paced readability and enjoyment of an unfolding plot with well-formed main characters. (It might have been nice if some of the secondary or especially the tertiary characters [Barbara King, Dorothy,...] had had a little more development.)
March 7, 2012
Just when you think you have heard every horror of World War II, Joseph Kanon tells you about Străuleşti. In earlier thrillers like “The Good German” and “Los Alamos” Kanon has gone to unexplored corners of the war experience and turned them into exceptionally atmospheric novels. “Istanbul Passage” covers the period right after the war when government intelligence networks were being dismantled, but new alliances were forming to smuggle Jews to Palestine and bring people with certain knowledge to the west.
Turkey was neutral during the war and as such became a hub for activity on all sides. In the novel, Leon Bauer is the American representative for R.J. Reynolds tobacco in Istanbul. He has become a minor intelligence factor for the U.S. Embassy, mostly helping shadowy figures get from point A to B. His German Jewish wife is institutionalized in a catatonic state after a ship she arranged to take Jews to Palestine burned and sank with terrible loss of life. This is the heartbreak of his life.
As intelligence officers are heading home, Leon is asked to facilitate one last escape to the west. This Romanian is trading aerial photos of Soviet facilities—invaluable now in the post-War world--for his safety. As it turns out, Andrei is much more than a former Nazi ally with something the U.S. badly wants. In the shifting loyalties of a new world, Leon is left alone to complete the deal.
This is a fascinating premise and Kanon fills the story out with a rich cast. But the real question is why is Leon helping this man when he knows who he is and he’s told that the aerial photos are already in Washington? I kept asking, and it distracted me from the story. Nonetheless, Kanon’s novels of moral questions are intriguing and keep your nose to the page. They also shine light in dark corners where the truth puts shivers up your spine.
Turkey was neutral during the war and as such became a hub for activity on all sides. In the novel, Leon Bauer is the American representative for R.J. Reynolds tobacco in Istanbul. He has become a minor intelligence factor for the U.S. Embassy, mostly helping shadowy figures get from point A to B. His German Jewish wife is institutionalized in a catatonic state after a ship she arranged to take Jews to Palestine burned and sank with terrible loss of life. This is the heartbreak of his life.
As intelligence officers are heading home, Leon is asked to facilitate one last escape to the west. This Romanian is trading aerial photos of Soviet facilities—invaluable now in the post-War world--for his safety. As it turns out, Andrei is much more than a former Nazi ally with something the U.S. badly wants. In the shifting loyalties of a new world, Leon is left alone to complete the deal.
This is a fascinating premise and Kanon fills the story out with a rich cast. But the real question is why is Leon helping this man when he knows who he is and he’s told that the aerial photos are already in Washington? I kept asking, and it distracted me from the story. Nonetheless, Kanon’s novels of moral questions are intriguing and keep your nose to the page. They also shine light in dark corners where the truth puts shivers up your spine.
August 27, 2012
Really a fine novel here. And I love titles that have 2 (or in this case at least 3) different meanings. But, pay attention when reading! The thoughts expressed on the page shift from action to dialog to the protagonist's inner thoughts without warning and sometimes in the same paragraph ...
An analogy comes to mind that may help out this review - in all of the superhero (e.g. Spiderman) movies, I'm always most interested in the episodes where they first discover and experiment with their super powers - well, this book is similar in that it charts the gradual transition from civilian to operative. And in the unlikely chance you've ever caught any of my other book reviews, you know I rail against superheroes in what is purported to be realistic fiction, but I found none of that here. A couple of clichéd characters, yes, but nothing that made me think, "no way that could happen."
This portrayal of a man who, at first seems a normal type, becoming ensnared in espionage reminded me of the Alan Furst tales, where everyday people become forced into clandestine lives in an attempt simply to survive in the face of implacable power. However, Istanbul Passage develops its story line with more drama and suspense than most Furst plots, while remaining plausible.
An analogy comes to mind that may help out this review - in all of the superhero (e.g. Spiderman) movies, I'm always most interested in the episodes where they first discover and experiment with their super powers - well, this book is similar in that it charts the gradual transition from civilian to operative. And in the unlikely chance you've ever caught any of my other book reviews, you know I rail against superheroes in what is purported to be realistic fiction, but I found none of that here. A couple of clichéd characters, yes, but nothing that made me think, "no way that could happen."
This portrayal of a man who, at first seems a normal type, becoming ensnared in espionage reminded me of the Alan Furst tales, where everyday people become forced into clandestine lives in an attempt simply to survive in the face of implacable power. However, Istanbul Passage develops its story line with more drama and suspense than most Furst plots, while remaining plausible.
June 10, 2013
The period and setting for this novel was captivating enough to keep me reading in spite of the novel's slow pace. Kanon's story takes place almost entirely in Istanbul with the exception of the few forays, the main character Leon Bauer makes aboard a fishing vessel and later aboard a transport ship carrying jewish refugees to Palestine.
Kanon's sense of place and knowledge of Istanbul, especially during those nostalgic years after WWII puts the reader in every passage. Though the story's pace was a bit slow for me, the author did a wonderful job providing a slow trickling of back story that answered questions raised right from the beginning. For example, what happened to Leon's wife Anna that caused her to be unresponsive in a hospital bed? Who was Alexie and why did the Russians, Turks, and Americans each have so much interest in him.
The pre-cold war maneuvering among former spies was also very intriguing.
Readers who enjoy WWII era intrigue will enjoy this story. Those interested in the cultural aspects of Turkey's role as a neutral country during WWII will also gain insight about the time and place of this entertaining story.
Kanon's sense of place and knowledge of Istanbul, especially during those nostalgic years after WWII puts the reader in every passage. Though the story's pace was a bit slow for me, the author did a wonderful job providing a slow trickling of back story that answered questions raised right from the beginning. For example, what happened to Leon's wife Anna that caused her to be unresponsive in a hospital bed? Who was Alexie and why did the Russians, Turks, and Americans each have so much interest in him.
The pre-cold war maneuvering among former spies was also very intriguing.
Readers who enjoy WWII era intrigue will enjoy this story. Those interested in the cultural aspects of Turkey's role as a neutral country during WWII will also gain insight about the time and place of this entertaining story.
September 1, 2012
Masterfully plotted, a real cork-screw. And set in one of the most fascinating cities on the planet. Thematically deep, with an added patina of moral murkiness painted over a flimsy network of complicated spy-thriller betrayals. The prose a bit too plain for my taste, but that's a quibble. Kanon is a Graham Greene for the American empire.
December 23, 2020
Μου άφησε περισσότερο την εντύπωση ότι διάβαζα ένα κινηματογραφικό σενάριο. Μία ιστορία που εξελίσσεται στην Κωνσταντινούπολη λίγο μετά τον Β παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και έχει τα πρώτα στοιχεία του ψυχρού πολέμου, όπως επίσης και την προσπάθεια της μετεγκαταστάσεως των Εβραίων στο νεοσύστατο κράτος του Ισραήλ. Μυστηριακή ατμόσφαιρα της Κωνσταντινούπολης και κατάσκοποι, δίνουν ένα αρκετά ενδιαφέρον βιβλίο.
March 4, 2013
If you like Alan Furst (and you should!) you will probably like this.
Author Joseph Kanon sets his story in Istanbul directly after WW2. Leon Bauer ostensibly works for an American tobacco company while doing clandestine early Cold War work for the US consulate and caring for his wife, a German Jew who has been traumatized by a disastrous experience working to move refugees through Turkey to Israel. This story revolves around a similar project, with Leon stuck in the middle of one, then two murders of Americans and a very iffy refugee from Romania,possibly a monster from the horrific pogroms there.
The story goes at a slow, melancholy pace till some harrowing events at the end. You might feel there is a bit too much talk and not enough action. But it serves to depict a weightless ‘noir’ character in Leon, a man unsure of almost everything amid international community intrigue and unfathomable local police. We also get a beautifully detailed view of an amazing city. I was happy that I tried this author for the first time. I will definitely read another.
Author Joseph Kanon sets his story in Istanbul directly after WW2. Leon Bauer ostensibly works for an American tobacco company while doing clandestine early Cold War work for the US consulate and caring for his wife, a German Jew who has been traumatized by a disastrous experience working to move refugees through Turkey to Israel. This story revolves around a similar project, with Leon stuck in the middle of one, then two murders of Americans and a very iffy refugee from Romania,possibly a monster from the horrific pogroms there.
The story goes at a slow, melancholy pace till some harrowing events at the end. You might feel there is a bit too much talk and not enough action. But it serves to depict a weightless ‘noir’ character in Leon, a man unsure of almost everything amid international community intrigue and unfathomable local police. We also get a beautifully detailed view of an amazing city. I was happy that I tried this author for the first time. I will definitely read another.
May 16, 2019
A couple of the reviews cited on the back cover of this novel compare Joseph Kanon's work to the writings of Graham Greene. I've come across such comments before but, having read his Los Alamos (which I liked), Alibi (which I loved) and Stardust (of which I had the highest of expectations but which, alas, disappointed me), have always taken them with a pinch of salt. Now, having read, Istanbul Passage, I quite understand the comparisons' point. There's also some Eric Ambler here, while the tale is set in what could loosely be thought of as Casablanca (1942) territory.
World War II has just ended, and Istanbul, which as neutral territory has been serving as a sort of hub for the espionage activities of the Axis and the Allies these past few years, is trying to work out what its role in the world is going to be. US tobacco trader Leon Bauer, who during the war did occasional unpaid freelance jobs for his country's covert intelligence services while also helping smuggle refugee Jews to safety, reluctantly agrees to take on one last little chore: meeting at the dock a defector from behind Russian lines and keeping him safe until he can be flown out to the US. Even though the defector, a Romanian nicknamed Alexei, proves to be a notorious Nazi butcher, Leon still feels duty bound to look after him.
Even as Alexei arrives at the dock, someone opens fire on them. Leon shoots back and hits his target. Next day comes the shock: the person he killed, the person who was trying to kill both Alexei and Leon, was the agent in the intelligence services who had served as Leon's contact/controller there. Even more concerning, Leon is recruited to be the person who investigates the "murder."
Leon isn't quite an amateur at the espionage game, but he's out of his depth as the professionals of the US, Russian and Turkish intelligence services, each with a different agenda, try to get to the root of things while also laying hands on Alexei. Then the agent the US has sent in from Ankara to investigate alongside Leon is murdered in the US consulate just after Leon has begun a torrid affair with the man's wife . . .
There's a heck of a lot more going on in Istanbul Passage than I could possibly outline even briefly here, but the above may give you some kind of gist of the content.
By and large, I was rapt by the novel, but this was despite some irritating tics in the writing. I can't remember if this was true of the earlier novels of his I read, but here Kanon has a bad habit of using very terse, allusive prose (with, often, very short sentences). The trouble with using this sort of allusive style is that, if the reader doesn't get the allusion, the narrative tends to fall apart a bit. On quite a few occasions while reading this book I came across instances where, after staring at a passage for far too long, I just had to accept that I really didn't know what the hell the text was trying to tell me. On other occasions the staccato style was in itself irritating, interrupting what should have been a smooth flow.
Despite that major grouse, I became increasingly gripped by the book, very much caught up in its world -- both the physical locale of postwar Istanbul and the environment of double- and triple-cross, the interplay of different countries' interests. I was also engrossed by the love story between Leon and his new mistress, Kay -- a love triangle really because, even though Leon's wife Anna has been confined to an institute as a near vegetable for years now, he still adores her, and his memories of her.
It's really a matter of chance that I read Istanbul Passage. I was sufficiently turned off by Kanon's Stardust that I put Istanbul Passage -- which I'd bought at the same time as Stardust on the basis of my enjoyment of Alibi -- on the heap for transmission to a library sale at some point. For some reason it missed a few library-sale consignments, and the other day I noticed it still sitting there and thought, Why not? I'm very glad I took that gamble on it, and very grateful to blind chance for having retained the book in the house long enough for me to take the gamble.
World War II has just ended, and Istanbul, which as neutral territory has been serving as a sort of hub for the espionage activities of the Axis and the Allies these past few years, is trying to work out what its role in the world is going to be. US tobacco trader Leon Bauer, who during the war did occasional unpaid freelance jobs for his country's covert intelligence services while also helping smuggle refugee Jews to safety, reluctantly agrees to take on one last little chore: meeting at the dock a defector from behind Russian lines and keeping him safe until he can be flown out to the US. Even though the defector, a Romanian nicknamed Alexei, proves to be a notorious Nazi butcher, Leon still feels duty bound to look after him.
Even as Alexei arrives at the dock, someone opens fire on them. Leon shoots back and hits his target. Next day comes the shock: the person he killed, the person who was trying to kill both Alexei and Leon, was the agent in the intelligence services who had served as Leon's contact/controller there. Even more concerning, Leon is recruited to be the person who investigates the "murder."
Leon isn't quite an amateur at the espionage game, but he's out of his depth as the professionals of the US, Russian and Turkish intelligence services, each with a different agenda, try to get to the root of things while also laying hands on Alexei. Then the agent the US has sent in from Ankara to investigate alongside Leon is murdered in the US consulate just after Leon has begun a torrid affair with the man's wife . . .
There's a heck of a lot more going on in Istanbul Passage than I could possibly outline even briefly here, but the above may give you some kind of gist of the content.
By and large, I was rapt by the novel, but this was despite some irritating tics in the writing. I can't remember if this was true of the earlier novels of his I read, but here Kanon has a bad habit of using very terse, allusive prose (with, often, very short sentences). The trouble with using this sort of allusive style is that, if the reader doesn't get the allusion, the narrative tends to fall apart a bit. On quite a few occasions while reading this book I came across instances where, after staring at a passage for far too long, I just had to accept that I really didn't know what the hell the text was trying to tell me. On other occasions the staccato style was in itself irritating, interrupting what should have been a smooth flow.
Despite that major grouse, I became increasingly gripped by the book, very much caught up in its world -- both the physical locale of postwar Istanbul and the environment of double- and triple-cross, the interplay of different countries' interests. I was also engrossed by the love story between Leon and his new mistress, Kay -- a love triangle really because, even though Leon's wife Anna has been confined to an institute as a near vegetable for years now, he still adores her, and his memories of her.
It's really a matter of chance that I read Istanbul Passage. I was sufficiently turned off by Kanon's Stardust that I put Istanbul Passage -- which I'd bought at the same time as Stardust on the basis of my enjoyment of Alibi -- on the heap for transmission to a library sale at some point. For some reason it missed a few library-sale consignments, and the other day I noticed it still sitting there and thought, Why not? I'm very glad I took that gamble on it, and very grateful to blind chance for having retained the book in the house long enough for me to take the gamble.
February 20, 2023
"What do you do when there's no right thing to do. Just the wrong thing."
Tough moral choices in a murky post-World War II (just barely) world in Istanbul, Turkey, are at the heart of this taut, atmospheric and ultimately terrific Cold War espionage tale from Joseph Kanon. There's an undeniable "Casablanca" sort of vibe going on here, with an attempt to smuggle a man out of the country, wavering loyalties and a love affair. But "Istanbul Passage" is so much more.
Kanon keeps the tension tight throughout in a story that isn't heavy on slam-bang action. But he keeps the main character, Leon Bauer, guessing, and us, too. Leon has been doing freelance and generally minor espionage work. He's asked to meet an unknown man coming into Istanbul by boat. The meeting flares up in unexpected violence when Leon is forced to kill (unknown to him at the time) the man he was working for, who apparently has switched loyalties.
From there, it's a tale of creeping paranoia, unknown allegiances and motives, and local color as Leon tries to shelter Alexei, a Romanian defector with Russian secrets whom the United States and America's new enemy, Russia, both want. Local police, Russian agents, Americans seemingly leading the investigation of the murder — not much is what it seems. Even the man Leon is protecting is hard to like — he's complicit in the brutal killing of Jews during the war. Leon tries to stay loyal to the man he was originally supposed to protect, meanwhile wrestling with the guilt of falling for a married woman even as he continues to visit his catatonic wife — scrambled by a tragedy at sea — in the clinic where she lives. Then there's the boatload of escaping Jews hung up in Istanbul by red tape.
Writing in a clipped, concise style that features short bursts of sharp dialogue and an approach that refuses to meet things head-on (like the half-spoken threats and hidden meanings in the characters' exchanges), Kanon goes all-in on this fine tale. That short, sharp writing — just a bit like some of James Ellroy's works, though nowhere near that extreme —probably will irritate some readers, but I found it gave a hardboiled, jerky momentum to things.
I don't read a lot of spy fiction, but it's not hard to see that "Istanbul Passage" ranks as a very good one. With its lingering tension and vivid depiction of Istanbul, it was a delightful surprise.
Tough moral choices in a murky post-World War II (just barely) world in Istanbul, Turkey, are at the heart of this taut, atmospheric and ultimately terrific Cold War espionage tale from Joseph Kanon. There's an undeniable "Casablanca" sort of vibe going on here, with an attempt to smuggle a man out of the country, wavering loyalties and a love affair. But "Istanbul Passage" is so much more.
Kanon keeps the tension tight throughout in a story that isn't heavy on slam-bang action. But he keeps the main character, Leon Bauer, guessing, and us, too. Leon has been doing freelance and generally minor espionage work. He's asked to meet an unknown man coming into Istanbul by boat. The meeting flares up in unexpected violence when Leon is forced to kill (unknown to him at the time) the man he was working for, who apparently has switched loyalties.
From there, it's a tale of creeping paranoia, unknown allegiances and motives, and local color as Leon tries to shelter Alexei, a Romanian defector with Russian secrets whom the United States and America's new enemy, Russia, both want. Local police, Russian agents, Americans seemingly leading the investigation of the murder — not much is what it seems. Even the man Leon is protecting is hard to like — he's complicit in the brutal killing of Jews during the war. Leon tries to stay loyal to the man he was originally supposed to protect, meanwhile wrestling with the guilt of falling for a married woman even as he continues to visit his catatonic wife — scrambled by a tragedy at sea — in the clinic where she lives. Then there's the boatload of escaping Jews hung up in Istanbul by red tape.
Writing in a clipped, concise style that features short bursts of sharp dialogue and an approach that refuses to meet things head-on (like the half-spoken threats and hidden meanings in the characters' exchanges), Kanon goes all-in on this fine tale. That short, sharp writing — just a bit like some of James Ellroy's works, though nowhere near that extreme —probably will irritate some readers, but I found it gave a hardboiled, jerky momentum to things.
I don't read a lot of spy fiction, but it's not hard to see that "Istanbul Passage" ranks as a very good one. With its lingering tension and vivid depiction of Istanbul, it was a delightful surprise.
April 20, 2012
“Istanbul Passage” by Joseph Kanon, published by Atria Books.
Category – Mystery/Thriller
If you are looking for a really, really good spy novel “Istanbul Passage” will satisfy all spy aficionados. There is no better place, today or back in the 1940’s, for a spy novel than Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus, one side Asia, the other side Europe. It has always been a hotbed for spies, Russian, American, British, and just about every other country. The Turks were, and still are very receptive towards foreign spies. They make a living at playing one side against the other, highest bidder is the winner.
Leon Bauer, an American Businessman, is a low level spy for America, doing menial tasks that contain very little risk. He is on a routine mission of picking up a Romanian refugee when he finds himself catapulted into the serious side of spying. He finds that he is in charge of a man who is wanted by all sides and may have been the force behind many deaths in a refugee camp.
Leon’s life becomes very complicated when he falls in love with the wife of his mentor. He must measure his love for this woman against his love for his wife who is in a comatose stupor and who may never get better. The situation worsens when his mentor is found shot to death and suspicion falls on him.
The book is full of surprises and gives an excellent description of what it was like to live in Istanbul in the 1940’s. There are chases that take one through the streets and the Grand Bazaar, which takes days to go through and one, can literally get lost in very easily.
An excellent read for those who like mysteries and spy novels. It may be the best spy novel to come out in some time that leaves the reader guessing from page to page.
Category – Mystery/Thriller
If you are looking for a really, really good spy novel “Istanbul Passage” will satisfy all spy aficionados. There is no better place, today or back in the 1940’s, for a spy novel than Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus, one side Asia, the other side Europe. It has always been a hotbed for spies, Russian, American, British, and just about every other country. The Turks were, and still are very receptive towards foreign spies. They make a living at playing one side against the other, highest bidder is the winner.
Leon Bauer, an American Businessman, is a low level spy for America, doing menial tasks that contain very little risk. He is on a routine mission of picking up a Romanian refugee when he finds himself catapulted into the serious side of spying. He finds that he is in charge of a man who is wanted by all sides and may have been the force behind many deaths in a refugee camp.
Leon’s life becomes very complicated when he falls in love with the wife of his mentor. He must measure his love for this woman against his love for his wife who is in a comatose stupor and who may never get better. The situation worsens when his mentor is found shot to death and suspicion falls on him.
The book is full of surprises and gives an excellent description of what it was like to live in Istanbul in the 1940’s. There are chases that take one through the streets and the Grand Bazaar, which takes days to go through and one, can literally get lost in very easily.
An excellent read for those who like mysteries and spy novels. It may be the best spy novel to come out in some time that leaves the reader guessing from page to page.
June 30, 2016
I enjoyed my first attempt at the work of Joseph Kanon. It was an excellent post-WWII spy novel. The setting was Istanbul and appropriately exotic. The city becomes another character in this story. The main character, Leon Bauer, is an American exporter, working for Reynolds Cigarettes. He also gets involved occasionally working for the local American spy guy, Tommy. His last mission goes awry, to help smuggle a potential war criminal into the city and pass him to the Americans. His handler is killed and Leon now finds himself in the position of trying to sort out the mess. Who is the traitor, why was Tommy killed and more. Leon is an excellent character, torn between giving up Alexei or helping him. The book contains an excellent cast of characters, Leon; his friend Mihai, who is working to try and help Jews get to the Palestine and also helping Leon; and three strong female characters; Kay, Lily and Marina, each with their own unique strengths. The spy craft and how Leon tries to get around both American and Russian intelligence and Turkish intelligence, in the person of Altan, another excellent, pragmatic character, makes for a taut, exciting story. I look forward to trying more Joseph Kanon books; Stardust currently sits on my bookshelf. (4 stars)
December 19, 2017
Kanon's writing is exceptional: the story is cleverly driven through dialogue and leaves the reader questioning up to the last page. His descriptions of Istanbul confirm my excitement for seeing it all in August.
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