Status Update

Carl is on page 278 of 433

Still loving the book; this comment is more about me as a reader:

It’s kind of a curse to notice errors in a book, in this case a typo (the “p” missing from “disappear”) and a misspelling (of “euthanized”) within a 10-page spread. It’s hard to be perfect as an editor, but I’ve read hundreds of books in which I’ve seen no errors. Maybe spellcheck didn’t exist in 1983, when this edition came out.

— 18 hours, 35 min ago

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Carl’s Previous Updates

Carl is on page 190 of 433

I just looked at IMDB to see who was cast in the early 1980s movie version of this so-far-mesmerizing detective story. I had imagined a James Coburn or Lee Marvin as Osborne and Brian Dennehy as Kirwill, and damned if that’s not who they cast (Marvin and Dennehy, to be precise). Their casting director was a genius.

— Jan 12, 2026 05:37PM

Carl is on page 142 of 433

— Jan 11, 2026 03:15PM

Carl is on page 37 of 433

Novels like this one foment disgust at Soviet Communism as powerfully as could anything Tom Clancy put together. Solzhenitsyn still tops that chart, though.

— Jan 10, 2026 12:28PM