The story of aCIA agent who has worked on the Middle East during the Cold War. He had several false identities called legends. He now presents one of his legends as a private eye and is asked to g find the missing husband of a young woman living in Israel. She needs a divorce so she would too free to marry again. The narrative jumps between many legends in the protagonist’s background. In the end the CIA is manipulating the downfall of the Soviet Union. ( )

I liked the main conspiracy theory, found some of the historical background really interesting but didn't care for the main character ( )

Reminds me of the TV show based upon it: all the right ingredients, just poorly put together.

Martin Odum is a former CIA field officer now working as a small-time private detective in Brooklyn. The covers, or legends, he lived in various parts of the world and in situations of extreme stress have become akin to distinct personalities that he has been unable to unload.

There’s Lincoln Pittman, an expert marksman and civil war scholar; Dante Pippen, an ex-IRA bomber; and Jozef Kafkor, a Pole. The CIA created the legends, Odum brought them to life, and they haven’t died.

When Odum is approached by the daughter of a former KGB officer to track down her sister’s missing Russian husband with a shady history, many of the ghosts of Odum’s, Dittman’s, Pittman,’s and Kafkor’s past lives converge as he travels to Israel and further in his search.

Littell is one of the most inventive writers of espionage novels working now. He’s also very adept at interweaving strands of a complicated plot into a well-paced and suspenseful story. ( )

Well, now I've done it.

I've just finished the book that will forever spoil the spy-novel genre for me.

Why?

This is simply the best spy novel I've read - and I've read some good ones - John le Carre's books, the late Robert Ludlum, Ian Flemming . . . I had begun to become jaded with spy-lit, mainly because it has all been done before.

Until Littell unleashes Martin Odum on us, along with Odum's "associates": "Legends," the identities he has used undercover - Lincoln Dittmann, Dante Pippin and . . . ah, but no spoiler here.

Odum is a "retired" CIA agent who starts working as a detective. He is hired to find the husband of a Jewish woman in Israel so she can get a get (a formal divorce decree) - otherwise, she will not be able to remarry. The search for the footloose husband, however, turns into something completely different for Odum, who finds himself being drawn back into an assignment involving . . . but, ah, no spoilers here.

This story is intelligently written; the suspense is almost continual; the plot is incredibly plausible. My appetite is now whetted for one more spy novel: The Company, which is supposed to be the best novel Littell has written.

You can't go wrong with this book. ( )