Review
From the book jacket: In
Legends, Littell focuses on the life of
one agent caught in a "wilderness of mirrors" where both remembering and
forgetting his past are deadly options. Martin Odum is a CIA field agent turned
private detective, struggling his way through a labyrinth of past
identities--"legends" in CIA parlance. Is he really Martin Odum? Or is he Dante
Pippen, an IRA explosives maven? Or Lincoln Dittmann, Civil War expert?
These men like different foods, speak different languages, have different
skills. Is he suffering from multiple personality disorder, brainwashing, or
simply exhaustion? Can Odum trust the CIA psychiatrist? Or Stella Kastner, a
young Russian woman who engages him to find her brother-in-law so he can give
her sister a divorce. As Odum redeploys his dormant tradecraft skills to
solve Stella's case, he...
Beyond the Book
Robert Littell was born on January 8, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York.
Before taking up writing full time, he was a Soviet affairs journalist for
Newsweek. His first novel was published in 1970, but he came to note in
1973 with
The Defection of A.J. Lewinter. He currently lives in
France.
His next novel,
Vicious Circle, is set in Israel and Palestine and is due to be
published this September.
Bibliography
Left and Right with Lion and Ryan (1970)
The Defection of A. J. Lewinter (1973)
Sweet Reason (1974)
The October Circle (1975)
Mother Russia (1978)
The Debriefing (1979)
The Amateur: A Novel of Revenge (1981)
The...
