36 Yalta Boulevard

Unabridged
Author: Olen Steinhauer
Narrator: Yuri Rasovsky
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
Date: June 2005
Length: 11 hours, 30 minutes
Ratings:
Formats:
  • CD

Overview

Olen's Steinhauer's acclaimed first two novels, The Bridge of Sighs and The Confession, have garnered thus far an Edgar nomination, an Anthony nomination, a Macavity nomination, a Historical Dagger nomination, and starred reviews everywhere. Now he takes this superb literary series set in a nameless Eastern European country into the 1960s.

State Security Officer Brano Sev is the secretive member of the homicide department of the capital's people's militia. No one else quite trusts him, but it is part of his job to do what the authorities ask, no matter what. So when he gets an order to travel to the village of his birth in order to interrogate a potential defector, he goes. When a man turns up dead shortly after he arrives and Brano is framed for the murder, he assumes this is part of the plan and allows it to run its course. But when the plan leads him into exile in Vienna, he finally begins to ask questions.

In fact, Comrade Brano Sev learns that loyalty to the cause might be the biggest crime of all.

Reviews (2)

36 Yalta Boulevard

Written by Kathleen on May 11th, 2006

  • Book Rating: 3/5

I listened to the whole book and I found it to be well written and quite interesting. I think the story line and the visual images the author wanted us to see were great; however, I didn't really like the book because I could not relate to the story at any level at all. I really didn't care what would happen next; if I hadn't received the other disks in the mail I wouldn't have cared.

Realistic, dark and disturbing

Written by Angelika Teal on May 1st, 2006

  • Book Rating: 3/5

I liked the book because it was a refreshing change from Hollywood spy movies. The character was not a cinema movie hero, but very uncharismatic and plain and not very likeable. The story and the plot was very complex and therefore interesting. You never knew whom to trust. It painted a very dark and glum picture of life behind the iron curtain in the cold war. What I could not understand was why the main character was so loyal to a government and system that treated him so brutal and why he was so accepting of it. Still it was a good story, but very dark and depressing.