Swan Song

by T.J. Binyon

1970s Moscow. Vanya Morozov is a teacher of English Literature. Not a party member, he views life and politics with a detached irony, and his main aim is to lead a quiet life. That is until his past starts to catch up with him. Twelve years earlier he and three other students spent an intense summer in the country. Since then their paths diverged - Tanya became a passionate film director; Alik an ambitious careerist and rising star in the KGB; and Lyuba, dreamy and idealistic, caught up in a strange underground movement. As a bureaucratic power struggle turns into something darker, the four are drawn together once again, as the Western Intelligence Agencies are alerted. As the action shifts from Moscow to Leningrad and finally to the snow-covered forests of the Volgoda regions, Vanya is forced to abandon his detachment and fight for his survival, and that of the girl he loves.

224 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1984

About the author

Timothy John Binyon was an English scholar and crime writer. He was a distant relative of the poet, Laurence Binyon.

T.J. Binyon was born in Leeds, where his father was a university lecturer. When, aged 18, he was doing National Service, he was assigned to the Joint Services School for Linguists in Bodmin, Cornwall, to learn Russian. There, in 1954, the young soldiers, among them Alan Bennett, Michael Frayn and Dennis Potter, were trained to serve as translators and interpreters in the Cold War. It was there that Binyon's interest in Russian language and literature was kindled.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Maya Parmar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book because it was a lot different that all the other books i’ve read. I normally love fantasy type books but this was a really interesting concept for a book. Some parts were hard to understand and a bit confusing at times so i found myself skimming over paragraphs but overall it was a good book. There was a decent amount of action but a lot of it was explanations and the action was so sparse that it felt nonexistent at times. The ending was not what i expected. For Vanya to wake up in the hospital and have everything explain to him after he passed out felt as if the author couldn’t be bothered to write another paragraph of action so it was a bit of an abrupt ending.