"We defended Stalingrad! We took Berlin! And you can’t even seduce an American?” [loc. 3161]
America, 1959: FBI agent Daniel Hawthorne is partnered with Soviet agent Gennady Matskevich in an investigation an assassination attempt. Someone shot at the train carrying Nikita Khrushchev through small-town America, and though Khruschev wasn't injured, such a diplomatic nightmare can't be allowed to go unpunished.
Both men have secondary missions, too. Daniel is tasked with showing Gennady the best aspects of America. ("No trips to the slums, no forays below the Mason-Dixon line.") Gennady is tasked with seducing and blackmailing Daniel. Daniel approaches his secret mission with rather more zest than Gennady: Gennady would not actually mind kissing Daniel, though discovery could mean the destruction of both their careers.
Their hunt for the assassin is more of a road trip than anything. Gennady's inspired by the Soviet writers Ilf and Petrov, who documented their American adventures in One-Storied America (1937). Daniel is happy to accompany Gennady to church dinners, bookstores (Hemingway is, apparently, big in Moscow), ice-skating rinks, et cetera. He tries not to repeat his previous mistake of falling for a colleague.
Then, just as their relationship starts to become more than merely camaraderie, the U2 spy plane crisis happens; Gennady is recalled to Moscow; and when they next meet it's 1975, and Daniel is married, and Gennady has received a two-year posting to Washington DC. Is there anything left between them after so long?
And a coda, in 1992: “‘Until the world changes,’ you said. And then the world changed, so… I wrote to you.” [loc. 5712]
The 1959/60 section, a slow-burn enemies-to-friends-to-more, was extremely enjoyable, with Cold War politics as a backdrop to the interaction of two very different men with unhappy pasts and complex identities. The dialogue was vivid and funny, romantic idealist Daniel frequently wrong-footed by Gennady's cynicism and deadpan humour. Later sections, though, didn't quite live up to that initial promise. While Daniel and Gennady were both 'aged up' credibly and intriguingly -- both became quieter, less passionate about life, less idealistic -- I wasn't convinced by their emotional reactions to one another, or to others around them. And without the Cold War, their lives seemed to be conducted in something of a vacuum.
There's a very good story in this novel, but it seemed unbalanced. I felt that it needed tightening up, evening out, expanding in some areas (the assignments / cases, for instance: I have no idea what they were doing in Boston) and perhaps compressed a little during that very first case, the hunt for the lone shooter who targetted Khruschev. I like Aster Glenn Gray's style and voice, and it's always pleasing to read a well-researched historical m/m romance grounded in its setting. The pacing, and the vagueness about what they're doing (apart from slow-burning), were the only aspects that didn't quite work for me.
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