Walking Back the Cat

by Robert Littell

Littell plunges the reader behind the headlines and into a mesmerizing post-cold war world where reactivated KGB agents, CIA operatives and Apaches combine forces to unravel a double-cross, retracing the operation to find the source of the deception - in espionage lingo, walking back the cat. A Soviet-era KGB agent code-named Parsifal lives under deep cover in a small town in New Mexico, adjacent to a Apache reservation. A specialist in what the KGB describes as "wetwork" and the rest of the world calls murder, Parsifal discovers, after years of dormancy, that he has a new "Resident" - and he is given assassination orders that lead him to the nearby Apache-run casino. Meanwhile Finn, a disillusioned Gulf War vet who has come to New Mexico for some R & R gets drawn into the web when he discovers that someone is shaking down the casino.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage, Mystery, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Russia

Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

An American author residing in France. He specializes in spy novels that often concern the CIA and the Soviet Union. He became a journalist and worked many years for Newsweek during the Cold War. He's also an amateur mountain climber and is the father of award-winning novelist Jonathan Littell.

Reviews

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everybody’s gone rogue in Walking Back the Cat. A dormant KGB wetwork specialist waking up to peculiarities in his kill orders, a CIA Medici masquerading as a Russian shot caller, Apache renegades bristling at the white man’s skim from their reservation casino, a fugitive Gulf War vet piloting a hot-air balloon with a combat shotgun like a chip on his shoulder; all these grievous outsiders add up to Robert Littell having a soft spot for honor-culture antagonists and the body counts their conflicting motivations leave behind. The betrayals and resolutions are speedy, bloody, familiar and comforting.

[David Linzee · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Len Deighton-ish plot unfolds in a Tony Hillerman setting. Littell writes short, sharply focused, glitteringly ironic scenes. He throws out the jagged fragments and trusts the reader to put them together. It's a pleasure to watch this veteran spy novelist at work. Only problem is, the post-Cold War era didn't leave him a lot to work with. At the denouement, it's a bit disappointing to find that the conspiracy is familiar stuff.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure why we don’t get a half star option, so I’ll just state that this would get 3 and a half stars if possible

I wasn’t quite sure how all the players came together in this post Cold War thriller (Russians, CIA, Apaches, Gulf War vet, and a few others). I also never quite came to understand the object of the plan being executed by the bad guys.

But Littell is a good writer and tells a good story.

[Gayle Turner]

Great plot, interesting characters

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous post-Cold War spy thriller about Finn, an Iraq 1 veteran whose hot air balloon lands in an Indian reservation and Parsifal, a long-dormant Soviet assassin revived for a new series of wetwork operations. Someone is shaking down the Indian's casino and anyone who tries to do anything about it meets with an accident. Finn looks into the shakedown and Parsifal receives instructions to off him. But why is a Soviet agent doing hits for what appears to be a Mafia operation?

Littell has been called the American LeCarre, and it's a well-earned title. His espionage novels are clever, nasty, full of twists, betrayals, bitter ironies and terrible human costs. The end of the Cold War doesn't faze him in the slightest. The intelligence game endures, deadly and terrible and self-sustaining. This is a tight, sharp, tense thriller as Finn and Parsifal work their way back up the chain of command to get to the truth. Riveting.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

With a 3-star review, I would put this as "very good" and also in Graham Greene's "an entertainment" category: not too heavy, but well written and very chewable. Like spy/espionage thrillers? CIA yarns?? Dig it. This time, Robert Littell uses a seemingly unlikely recipe to concoct a quick-moving blast of post-cold war ink-and-paper cinema. Here he uses:

A KGB wet-work team and hit-man
A discharged Gulf War vet
A hot-air balloon (that's right, a dirigible!)
An indian reservation


Sounds weird, right? I mean, it's set after the Cold War. How can the KGB still function?! It's the freakin' 20th century (1996 or so). A hot-air balloon? And what kind of a story would take these people to an Apache reservation in New Mexico?

Read on, peeps. This story actually works. . . well.

[Charles Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this story. It is imaginative, well written, and something besides the same boring black-ops-spy story. It did take just about half-way before we had ignition but after that Littell blasted off straight up! I like the assortment of characters. I like the setting. I like the swap of time frames. I also liked his avoidance of romance as a diversion. Rather what little romance there is really seems to fit the story and the characters. One side effect of the considerable treachery built into the plot at the end the reader is still left to guess how the ending will play out.

Littell has done a masterful service to writing a spy-thrillers because Walking Back the Cat isn't about blowing up everything in the world or some superhuman spy master/villain/hero that makes no mistakes. Thank you!

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the fall of the Soviet Union, what happens to the deep cover agents in the US? Littell spins a very unlikely but entertaining story of one scenario. I won't go through the plot (which is a basic "quest" plot) as I'm sure it is better handled elsewhere, but I do want to comment on the characterization or the lack of it. The main characters Finn and Parsifal, a Gulf War vet and a seasoned KGB assassin, on the surface are ripe for some good character studies - but Littell leaves a lot on the table as they are pretty much ciphers - Finn in particular since you expect Parsifal to sketched lightly. The Apache characters are much more relate-able and in some ways are the highlight of the tale.

[Mar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walking back the Cat is a term for retracing the order of events (going backwards) to see where things fell apart. In this novel, a KGB cell is "reactivated" in North America, but agents begin to question who is in control/giving the orders--has the cell been compromised?

Okay beach book thriller, but there are better ones.

[Amy Pelletier · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. The two main characters are trying to find out who sent one of them to kill the other, and I just didn't care who did it. Oh well, I liked all of the other books of his that I read.

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is nothing straightforward about Littell's spy stories. I don't think I'd want them any other way. It was a little predictable and the characters were almost cliched, but the story was fresh, addictive and enjoyable.

[Phil Hodge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I disagree with the NYT comment "the American LaCarre". Littell is FAR better than LaCarre. OK, brand me as a heretic, but I often have trouble finishing LaCarre, while I had trouble putting this down.

[Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Littell is a master, among the pantheon of espionage-writers. Once again, he has produced a delight: prose so slippery that the pages flow; plot so gripping that meals, even ciggies, go ignored. Treat yourself!

[Mr. Pe Mr. Pe]

this is a great book and i recommend it to everyone

[Robert Platter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, but the ending was a little too smooth.

[Kevin Jolly]

Walking Back the Cat by Robert Littell (2008)

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah! That is better, an espionage novel with an element of authenticity about it.

[Kak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

I consider Robert Littell one of the best writers in the "spy" genre, and this was another good tale from him.

[Chet Mclin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice tight reading novel. A quick study and a quick read. Pleasant arm chair reading.

[Olivier · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice novel.