Istanbul Passage, Joseph Kanon
Istanbul Passage, Joseph Kanon
3 Rating(s)
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Istanbul Passage

Author: Joseph Kanon

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Unabridged: 14 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/29/2012


Synopsis

In the bestselling tradition of espionage novels by John LeCarre and Alan Furst, Istanbul Passage brilliantly illustrates why Edgar Award–winning author Joseph Kanon has been hailed as "the heir apparent to Graham Greene" (The Boston Globe).

Istanbul survived the Second World War as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even expatriate American Leon Bauer was drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs in support of the Allied war effort. Now as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of postwar life, Leon is given one last routine assignment. But when the job goes fatally wrong—an exchange of gunfire, a body left in the street, and a potential war criminal on his hands—Leon is trapped in a tangle of shifting loyalties and moral uncertainty.

Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Istanbul Passage is the unforgettable story of a man swept up in the dawn of the Cold War, of an unexpected love affair, and of a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.

About Joseph Kanon

Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award–winning author of Los Alamos and nine other novels: The Prodigal SpyAlibiStardustIstanbul PassageLeaving BerlinDefectorsThe AccompliceThe Berlin Exchange, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. Other awards include the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers and the Human Writes Award of the Anne Frank Foundation. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on December 17, 2018

”You’re so sure somebody’s watching.” “It’s Istanbul.” The curtains twitch. The doorways have eyes. Nothing happens in Istanbul without someone seeing it. Anything clandestine has to be hidden behind layers of misdirection. There are eyes everywhere in a city of people who know the value of information......more

Goodreads review by Peter on July 17, 2012

A book I was savoring... it's that good. There are parallels to Graham Greene and John le Carre here... more of the former compared to the latter, with a bit of Jenkens thrown in. The fantastic never happens, the predictable occurs (and because this is a thriller you may hope it does not)- but the ch......more

Goodreads review by Mike on May 05, 2024

I enjoyed this book. The last of my Madeira holiday reads. The story connected Romania where I had lived and worked for 3 years and Turkey where I had worked and vacationed. The story is set late in 1945 at the end of the war. Leon Bauer works in Istanbul ( almost a Humphrey Bogart character). He is......more

Goodreads review by Mark on June 29, 2013

All right, I'm officially a convert. This is my first experience of Joseph Kanon, and it was well worth it. If you are going to write about the morally ambiguous world of spycraft but also give readers someone to root for, you need an author who can create characters who may never be what they seem,......more

Goodreads review by Judith on June 21, 2012

Hard to imagine any other setting for Kanon’s historical thriller, Istanbul Passage. Post World War II spy intrigues, war criminals seeking new friends, allegiances shifting yet again between America and Russia, battered Jews looking for refuge, illicit romance, the legacy of harems and the labyrint......more