Untraceable

November 1, 2020

Lebedev's fourth novel to be published in English (following Oblivion, The Year of the Comet, and The Goose Fritz) affirms his emergence as one of Russia's leading writers. In some nebulous period following the demise of the Soviet Union, a defector collapses suddenly in a bustling restaurant. Everyone suspects poisoning, but Kalitin, a scientist now living in seclusion somewhere in the West, knows instantly that the cause is Neophyte, a virulent chemical weapon he developed that kills anyone in its proximity and evaporates without detection. In the post-Cold War era, Kalitin, who still has a smuggled stash of his life's work in his possession, realizes that Russian authorities have begun to use Neophyte to disappear its enemies and defectors. What he doesn't know is that an ex-military commando named Shershnev has already been dispatched to find Kalitin, retrieve the stolen Neophyte, and use it on its creator. The novel alternates between the two men, both reflecting on their past histories as agents of death, as they move inexorably toward an underwhelming confrontation. VERDICT Though readers will be disappointed if they expect a fast-paced cat-and-mouse chase, Lebedev's rich and ruminative writing raises important questions about the ethics and personal costs of perpetrating anonymous mass murder.--Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 7, 2020
The Russian government’s poisoning of political enemies provides the backdrop for this timely thriller from Russian author Lebedev (The Year of the Comet). Professor Kalitin, a chemist who’s working on developing an untraceable poison he calls Neophyte, had been a loyal subject of the Communist regime in its waning days. When the Soviet Union collapses, he decides to defect to the West. After another defector is killed using Neophyte, two Russian generals decide the chemist must be eliminated. Lieutenant Colonel Shershnev is assigned to direct an operation to assassinate Kalitin. Lebedev uses flashbacks to build complicated characters and intensify the plot, but these sometimes slow and confuse. Assured prose is a plus (“He wept with tears postponed for two decades, no longer salty; belated, warm, ugly, desired”), but the weak ending will disappoint genre readers, as will the lack of action and heroic characters. Those who prefer a more literary approach will enjoy the change of pace. Agent: Galina Dursthoff, Galina Dursthoff Literary (Germany).

Starred review from January 15, 2021
An aging chemist who defected to the West after the collapse of the Soviet Union is targeted by Russian assassins armed with a lethal dose of the "untraceable and imperceptible" poison he developed. Kalitin, the 70-year-old chemist, created the neurotoxin, called Neophyte, in a secret facility on a distant Russian island. A spiritually empty "fan of death," he is now dying of cancer himself in the former German Democratic Republic. After Vyrin, a second Russian defector, is fatally poisoned, Russian generals suspecting that Kalitin is working with German police in an investigation of the killing send Shershnev, a war-damaged special forces operative, to rub him out before suspicion "falls on our country." A third player in this barbed narrative, which cycles back to Russia's collaborations with Germany on lab experiments in the 1930s, is Travniček, a compromised church pastor who prays for "the people with dead hearts." Though the novel was inspired in part by the fatal poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in England in 2018, those looking for a page-turning spy novel should probably look elsewhere. Lebedev, a modernist whose corrosive vision was introduced to U.S. readers in Oblivion (2016) and The Year of the Comet (2017), is less interested in plot than probing the wasted inner lives of his characters, the surreal aspects of their existence, and the horrors that science casually inflicts on people, animals, and the environment. Though Putin is never mentioned, his malevolent presence is felt throughout. A darkly absorbing intellectual thriller by one of Russia's boldest young novelists.

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