Book 27: Archangel

Robert Harris' Archangel is a cut above the rest of his novels, following dried-up English historian, Christopher Kelso. After chancing across Papu Rapava, who claims to have been one of Lavrentiy Beria's guards and was the only person to witness him stealing Joseph Stalin's most secret documents whilst he lay dying, Kelso feels compelled to investigate his allegations in a desperate attempt to re-establish himself in his field. However, Russia is not a safe place to be investigating Stalin's secrets, even more than forty years after his death. After establishing contact with Rapava's daughter, Zinaida, Kelso finds that the document is not Stalin's diary, as he'd hoped, but that of one of his maids. Intrigued as to why Stalin had kept this diary so carefully hidden, Kelso heads north to the maid's village, Archangel. However, he is not alone, as American journalist, R. J. O'Brian has been keeping an eye on Kelso from the beginning, so the pair make their way into the treacherous north and end up coming back with far more than they expected.

It is unsurprising that Harris chose Russia as a base for one of his novels, given his lifelong interest in history and politics. However, Archangel does not come across as a political novel but as a thrilling mystery with strong historical and political influences. Easily the most noteworthy aspect of the novel is Harris' intertwining of the details of his fiction with the incredibly complex reality of Russian history and politics. Stalin was one of the most complex dictators of the 20th century, as, despite in many ways being more psychopathic and causing more deaths than Adolf Hitler, following Stalin's rule there were no 'Nuremberg Trials' or 'denazification', and thus Stalin remains a celebrated historical figure, with an alarming 35% of Russians claiming that they would vote for him if he were still alive in 2006. This contrasts vastly with the otherwise widespread view that Stalin was a tyrannical psychopath, creating a very interesting context for Harris to write in as a western author writing a Stalin-based novel set in Russia. Harris assumes a basic knowledge of 20th century Russia amongst his readership, meaning that there is no danger of Archangel reading like a history book, although the premise of the novel is certainly believable enough to be credited as non-fiction.The only disadvantage to this assumption is that those without this knowledge either risk missing important nuances and humorous asides throughout the novel or have to do a little research themselves. Personally, having little to no grasp of Russian history prior to reading this novel, I opted for the latter option and felt that it really enhanced my enjoyment of the novel.

The indisputable highlight of Archangel for me was its unforeseeable twists and turns, creating a thrilling and gripping novel. This is credit to both Harris' skill in manipulating history into fiction and Russia itself with its historical tradition of terror that translates so thrillingly into this novel. It will be interesting to see whether Harris produces another novel of such thrilling, historically based action in the future.