I can't remember where I heard about that book. The fact is I never even heard about this author. But I'm really thankful for finding out about such a gem. And that's why...

The book which came in from the cold

Kolymsky Heights is an epic and structurally archetypal story of a quest, hidden under the hard shell of a spy story. And as any good spy story, it starts in England, at Oxford, where a bookish professor receives an unusual call for help from a Russian scientist he met years ago and whom he barely remembers. But Dr. Oxford is not a hero. He is just the one to deliver the message to the true hero needed, a native-American Canadian called Johnny Porter. And Johnny Porter has more than his fair share of qualities to infiltrate the Soviet Union, in the deepest rural regions of Siberia: first of all, he is a native-american Canadian, so physically he won't stand out too much among the native Siberians ; second, he is a expert polyglot, who has an intimate knowledge of a dozen languages ; and third, he is tough as nails, having served on tankers and boats around the Pacific during his troublesome teenage years. Helped by the CIA, Porter is sent on his way to Siberia through a Japanese merchant boat making the crossing of the artic sea. And this is just the first step of a journey of a thousand miles in the heart of the whiteness...

                                                             

A no-nonsense spy story

Usually, when I read a book, I always keep a pen nearby in order to jot down any quote or highlight any line worth remembering. This time, I have not a single line to highlight in this book. And that is actually not a bad thing. This is a no-nonsense story. The author does not try literature. He is writing a story. With a beginning, a middle and an end. And it's relentless. There is no time, no space or no will for any kind of forcing the point. The style is dry as an icicle, with the exceptions of a few cold jokes. Every word, every chapter, every paragraph has for unic aim to advance and provide for the plot, with a supreme kind of efficiency, ruthless like the main character. Once you start, it's impossible to put this book down, in case you would miss a detail. And the details are everything. Johnny Porter is nothing if not a very meticulous man. His journey starts with a preparation where, during months, he has to refresh is Russian and Korean, learn the way a merchant boat is set in order to prepare his "legend", memorize every tiny scrap of information found and prepared for him in order to successfully infiltrate the mysterious Soviet laboratory which might explain the unexpected failures of Chinese rockets...  But of course, after any preparation, comes the moment when the man has to improvise. 

                       

In an Out of Siberia for dummies

Let's not get carried away: the story has nothing revolutionary. But it's archetypal, and done with a great eye for the details and the verisimilitude. I wonder how Lionel Davidson did his research. I bet he never even set foot in Siberia. However, everything in this book feels authentic and real. And thinking about it, he does not even indulge in word-droppings of Russian. There are maybe half-a-dozen Russian words, and none are in cyrillics. Lionel Davidson does not take the reader for a dummy and won't pretend he speaks Russian to impress the reader. This way, he can focus on his story, whose arc is basically: enter Russia through the artic circle, get familiar and friendly with the locals, find a way to enter the secret laboratory, learn what there is to learn and then... Get the hell out of it! As you can imagine, the whole story takes MONTHS to prepare and MONTHS to achieve! However, it never feels like that for the reader. Days, weeks, months pass quickly... Until the eventual departure to escape Siberia, where everything escalates and accelerates in a matter of days, then hours, and even minutes during the truly hectic and apoplectic finale.

                                    

More Johnny Porter please, less James Bond

I would love to read more stories of Johnny Porter, because... what a guy! James Bond, step away, my idol is the native-american who can learn any language, fake his way through Soviet security, and even build his own truck when he cannot steal one! Moreover, he proves to have success with women on every continent he goes. Such a template would be enough to devise a few more stories, where Johnny Porter would be able to infiltrate tribes and communities around the ring of fire of the Pacific, where his look would make him more than home than any 007 agent. However, we will never see any other story from him and that's a shame. First of all because the fate Johnny Porter endures at the end of his fateful escape from Siberia forbids any more mission for him. And second, his author, Lionel Davidson, died in 2002. Let's not forget this writer.

                                                                        

A tale of two continents

Thousand of years ago, the land masses of America and Asia were connected, at the place where now stretches the Bering Sea. This connection made the passage possible for human tribes and for the colonization of America by the human race. Of course, when the tectonic plates and the sea closed this passage, this was a game changer for the human race. And the book is great at highlighting the colossal place this was for human, and still is, thanks to the division between Soviet Union (or Russia) and USA on the other side. As you learn in the book, and you would not imagine otherwise, is that actually you have only 4 kilometers of space between USA and Russia, at the shorter place. Yep. However, when you will finish this book, these 4 kilometers will seem to you like a never-ending tunnel of pain, fear and anguish. 

In conclusion, Kolymsky Heights is a really gripping and fascinating book, which any fellow writer should read in order to see how to master storytelling and the subtle art of details which make any story believable.