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Charlie Brewer #1
Catch Me: Kill Me
Vintage paperback
297 pages, Paperback
First published July 6, 1978
10 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
William H. Hallahan
19 books23 followersWilliam Henry Hallahan was an American writer, best known for his two occult novels, The Search for Joseph Tully and The Keeper of the Children.
Mr. Hallahan started in the advertising business and stayed in the business for most of his adult life, but in 1971 with the publication of his first novel, The Dead of Winter, he began a second career as a writer. Over the next seventeen years he would write eight novels. In the 1990's he switched from fiction to non-fiction.
Mr. Hallahan served in the United States Navy as a radio operator during World War II He is survived by his daughter and a brother. He passed away at the age of 92.
Mr. Hallahan started in the advertising business and stayed in the business for most of his adult life, but in 1971 with the publication of his first novel, The Dead of Winter, he began a second career as a writer. Over the next seventeen years he would write eight novels. In the 1990's he switched from fiction to non-fiction.
Mr. Hallahan served in the United States Navy as a radio operator during World War II He is survived by his daughter and a brother. He passed away at the age of 92.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
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January 19, 2019A Russian poet had defected to the U. S. and has taken no state secrets and is no threat to the Soviets in any way, yet he is kidnapped by Russian diplomats attached to the U. N. Why is an impoverished, unimportant poet so important to the Russians?.
December 28, 2020
Slow to begin with so stick with it. You've essentially got two separate storylines as two individual characters (each unaware of the other) go about investigating an abduction. One discovers the reasons behind the kidnapping and the other is responsible for the rescue mission. I liked this type of narrative and thought it was very effective for this kind of story, but I did, at times, find it a little tricky to keep track of the timeframe and the different characters encountered by each narrator. I found in some cases that by the time it switched narrators and we met a particular character again, I'd forgotten why they were significant and which event they were involved in... so stay focused, I suppose! No real criticisms though, its a good read!
December 8, 2021
This is a 1977 spy thriller by American author William Hallahan and is the winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1978. The setting of the book is mainly in New York City over a one-week period in 1970s. It is premised on a theme popular in 1970s: the dysfunctional CIA, rogue agents, and the spy war between US and Russian. I am disappointed in the book. It reads dated and the philosophical and cynical hero, disgraced former CIA spy Charlie Brewer, is boring to read. In contrast, I find another Edgar winner of the period, the 1976 book Hopscotch by Brian Garfield, which has a similar theme and backdrop, a much more exciting and interesting book.
Spoiler Alert. The story is about the kidnapping in New York Grand Central Station of a famous Russian poet Boris Kotlikoff, who has defected to the United States a few years ago. The kidnapping became a major media sensation and readers were told both the US and USSR politicians were concerned about the situation but no one in the US could figure out why the Russians want to kidnap Boris, given he had no sensitive information or skill that anyone wants, and he is not politically active in any way. It complicates matters that at that time, Boris was technically a man without a country. He was no longer a Russian citizen because he has defected. Nor was he a US citizen subject to US protection because he only had a conditional entrant status. The story then diverged into two separate plots. The first involves a U.S. government lawyer called Ben Leary, who is the Legal Counsel for the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, part of the Justice Department. Ben is officially only tangentially involved with the Boris case, but he decided to take on a personal interest to investigate why anybody wants to kidnap Boris. The second plot involves the book’s defective hero, disgraced former-CIA spy Charlie Brewer, who has been forced into early retirement by the CIA after having worked there for 25 years. His former boss, Gus Geller, offered Charlie (who has been on a downward spiral since he lost his job) a chance to come back to the CIA if he would find out where the Russians have hidden Boris, rescue him, and deliver Boris to Gus; and to do it off-the-book without telling anybody. What follows then are two parallel stories (with the two heroes never interacting with each other, nor do each know the other exists). Ben mainly focused on finding out why Boris was kidnapped, and Charlie focused on finding out where Boris was and subsequently rescued him.
In the end, the two stories come together. It turned out there exists at that time an underground railroad arrangement where Jewish people in America and Italy formed a network to help Jews escape from the U.S.S.R via Italy and then to defect to the United States. At the same time, however, Gus Geller, a senior CIA officer in Washington, was actually a traitor working for the Russians. Gus and his gang are “bounty hunters”. Gus would use his CIA position to find out where the Russian defectors are now living (and what names are they using) then send his assassins to murder the defectors to collect a bounty from the Russians. Those two forces converge when famous Russian physicist Sergei Rostov (who knows a lot of Russian military secrets) decided to defect to the United States. The underground railroad at first refused to help him because Sergei is not a Jew and therefore does not fall under their mission statement. Boris, however, talked them into helping Sergei and Boris financed the operation himself. The Russians got wind of it and decided to kidnap Boris and held him hostage in the Russia Mission building in New York, hoping to use Boris as leverage against Sergei. Brewer discovered where Boris was hidden and launched a successful and daring rescue mission and got Boris out. In the meantime, Ben Leary figured out Gus was a traitor and blew the whistle on him. Sergei arrived in the United States and faded into the crowd, refusing to work for the United States government.
Spoiler Alert. The story is about the kidnapping in New York Grand Central Station of a famous Russian poet Boris Kotlikoff, who has defected to the United States a few years ago. The kidnapping became a major media sensation and readers were told both the US and USSR politicians were concerned about the situation but no one in the US could figure out why the Russians want to kidnap Boris, given he had no sensitive information or skill that anyone wants, and he is not politically active in any way. It complicates matters that at that time, Boris was technically a man without a country. He was no longer a Russian citizen because he has defected. Nor was he a US citizen subject to US protection because he only had a conditional entrant status. The story then diverged into two separate plots. The first involves a U.S. government lawyer called Ben Leary, who is the Legal Counsel for the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, part of the Justice Department. Ben is officially only tangentially involved with the Boris case, but he decided to take on a personal interest to investigate why anybody wants to kidnap Boris. The second plot involves the book’s defective hero, disgraced former-CIA spy Charlie Brewer, who has been forced into early retirement by the CIA after having worked there for 25 years. His former boss, Gus Geller, offered Charlie (who has been on a downward spiral since he lost his job) a chance to come back to the CIA if he would find out where the Russians have hidden Boris, rescue him, and deliver Boris to Gus; and to do it off-the-book without telling anybody. What follows then are two parallel stories (with the two heroes never interacting with each other, nor do each know the other exists). Ben mainly focused on finding out why Boris was kidnapped, and Charlie focused on finding out where Boris was and subsequently rescued him.
In the end, the two stories come together. It turned out there exists at that time an underground railroad arrangement where Jewish people in America and Italy formed a network to help Jews escape from the U.S.S.R via Italy and then to defect to the United States. At the same time, however, Gus Geller, a senior CIA officer in Washington, was actually a traitor working for the Russians. Gus and his gang are “bounty hunters”. Gus would use his CIA position to find out where the Russian defectors are now living (and what names are they using) then send his assassins to murder the defectors to collect a bounty from the Russians. Those two forces converge when famous Russian physicist Sergei Rostov (who knows a lot of Russian military secrets) decided to defect to the United States. The underground railroad at first refused to help him because Sergei is not a Jew and therefore does not fall under their mission statement. Boris, however, talked them into helping Sergei and Boris financed the operation himself. The Russians got wind of it and decided to kidnap Boris and held him hostage in the Russia Mission building in New York, hoping to use Boris as leverage against Sergei. Brewer discovered where Boris was hidden and launched a successful and daring rescue mission and got Boris out. In the meantime, Ben Leary figured out Gus was a traitor and blew the whistle on him. Sergei arrived in the United States and faded into the crowd, refusing to work for the United States government.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2018
Bit of a slow build. The setup is interesting enough - a dissident Russian poet is kidnapped in New York City, seemingly by the KGB, and a two-pronged effort is mounted to figure out why and possibly get him back. Meanwhile there are forces within the government who have their own reasons to thwart the efforts. The more the poet is investigated, the more innocuous and insignificant he appears - why would the KGB care? While this serves an important plot point, it did start to get tedious and I felt no great urge to know what happened next. In the secondary plot, a broken-down ex-CIA agent who has been kicked out for taking the law into his own hands and is now living over a pool hall, is given the chance to redeem himself by getting the poet back. This character seems like a pretty stock character.
Then, about halfway through the book, something clicks (helped along by a very amusing episode with a fence who really knows what he wants from an Italian meal). The desperation of the ex-CIA guy to put together a viable plan with the poor tools at his disposal takes on real urgency, and the paper-pusher who is only continuing the investigation to spite those who would thwart him, starts to make headway. The second half read a lot faster than the first. In the end, it was a pretty successful combination of whodunit and caper story, which isn't that easy to do.
Then, about halfway through the book, something clicks (helped along by a very amusing episode with a fence who really knows what he wants from an Italian meal). The desperation of the ex-CIA guy to put together a viable plan with the poor tools at his disposal takes on real urgency, and the paper-pusher who is only continuing the investigation to spite those who would thwart him, starts to make headway. The second half read a lot faster than the first. In the end, it was a pretty successful combination of whodunit and caper story, which isn't that easy to do.
March 23, 2019
Seems like it was simpler days back then, today rubbing someone out is done without a twitch
May 17, 2019
5/17/19 Full review tk.
July 19, 2020
Read in 1978. A mystery which won the Edgar award for that year.
September 4, 2022
Terrible staccato writing without much contextualization. This isn’t worth the time to finish.
December 22, 2022
Won Edgar Best Novel 1977. Unique plot with two different protagonists working in parallel. If you read it, you will understand.
August 28, 2008
A recent contributor to the DorothyL mystery discussion list, differentiating among mysteries, thrillers and suspense, said that thrillers are focused on "how." That made a lot of sense to me in the context of many of the late-70s Edgar winners I've been reading lately. CATCH ME: KILL ME begins with the kidnapping of a Russian poet (who has defected to the US) in Grand Central Station. As several agencies meet to discuss the event, it becomes evident that the kidnappers all have diplomatic immunity and there is no "legal" way to retrieve the poet. The twist in this thriller is that there are two agents working the case. One, Brewer, is actually an ex-agent who hopes to win his position back by rescuing the Russian poet -- but HOW? The other, Leary, battles interagency rivalries and stonewalling witnesses to find out WHY the poet (who had lived peacefully in America for 3 years or so) was kidnapped in the first place.
CATCH ME: KILL ME is very much a post-Watergate book, and a book set largely in New York City in the aftermath of the famous Daily News headline, "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." There are even echoes of the (much earlier) Kitty Genovese case in scenes where passers-by ignore people being beaten in front of them. The New York of book: CATCH ME: KILL ME] is bankrupt both economically and morally, an extremely depressing place.
This, indeed, was the major fault I found with the book. It could have been a good deal shorter without some of the interminable descriptions of Brewer's pool-playing neighbor, which added rather too much atmosphere without advancing the plot. Some of the characters Leary encounters talk a bit too much as well. In other words, the book took too long to get to the "thrilling" parts.
Both CATCH ME: KILL ME and book:HOPSCOTCH] dealt with forcibly retired CIA agents and their distasteful former supervisors. But if Miles Kendig and Myerson in HOPSCOTCH were the stuff of comedy, Brewer and the odious Geller in Hallahan's book came awfully close to tragedy, and in fact, it's perfectly possible that after the book's last page, there may well be a tragic outcome for at least one character. Although I had to struggle to finish this book, I do find myself thinking about it several days later, and I think too that it caught the prevailing mood of its time, which got its author the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
CATCH ME: KILL ME is very much a post-Watergate book, and a book set largely in New York City in the aftermath of the famous Daily News headline, "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." There are even echoes of the (much earlier) Kitty Genovese case in scenes where passers-by ignore people being beaten in front of them. The New York of book: CATCH ME: KILL ME] is bankrupt both economically and morally, an extremely depressing place.
This, indeed, was the major fault I found with the book. It could have been a good deal shorter without some of the interminable descriptions of Brewer's pool-playing neighbor, which added rather too much atmosphere without advancing the plot. Some of the characters Leary encounters talk a bit too much as well. In other words, the book took too long to get to the "thrilling" parts.
Both CATCH ME: KILL ME and book:HOPSCOTCH] dealt with forcibly retired CIA agents and their distasteful former supervisors. But if Miles Kendig and Myerson in HOPSCOTCH were the stuff of comedy, Brewer and the odious Geller in Hallahan's book came awfully close to tragedy, and in fact, it's perfectly possible that after the book's last page, there may well be a tragic outcome for at least one character. Although I had to struggle to finish this book, I do find myself thinking about it several days later, and I think too that it caught the prevailing mood of its time, which got its author the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
April 16, 2016
BOTTOM-LINE:
I see why it won awards
.
PLOT OR PREMISE:
Set in the 1970s, and a Russian poet has sought asylum in the U.S. Days before he qualifies for citizenship, he is kidnapped from Grand Central Station. Why was he taken? How can they help him? Where is he?
.
WHAT I LIKED:
The story diverges on two tracks -- a black-bag CIA operative comes in from the cold just enough to maintain full deniability while he looks for the man and an FBI manager keeps poking and prodding trying to find out why. Neither one knows the other exists, and the two stories remain fully compartmentalized.
.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
The opening is extremely descriptive, almost one-step removed from the action, and it takes awhile until you are fully engaged in the two tracks.
.
DISCLOSURE:
I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow him on social media.
I see why it won awards
.
PLOT OR PREMISE:
Set in the 1970s, and a Russian poet has sought asylum in the U.S. Days before he qualifies for citizenship, he is kidnapped from Grand Central Station. Why was he taken? How can they help him? Where is he?
.
WHAT I LIKED:
The story diverges on two tracks -- a black-bag CIA operative comes in from the cold just enough to maintain full deniability while he looks for the man and an FBI manager keeps poking and prodding trying to find out why. Neither one knows the other exists, and the two stories remain fully compartmentalized.
.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
The opening is extremely descriptive, almost one-step removed from the action, and it takes awhile until you are fully engaged in the two tracks.
.
DISCLOSURE:
I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow him on social media.
February 28, 2010
Catch Me: Kill Me started off with much promise, but dipped severely as it never convinced me why we should care about rescuing a kidnapped Soviet poet...and it never recovered that early interest. The denouement (in the rescue mission) is very good, and I can imagine that put it over the top to win the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel. Unfortunately, there was never any great mystery or any real good espionage to make it a favorite.
May 10, 2010
Another great Hallahan
Want to read
November 16, 2018Synopsis: it looks like the KGB in New York has kidnapped a dissident Russian poet. But why? He seems so meaningless.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews