The Quest for Anna Klein
Review: Thomas H. Cook's latest stand-alone, The Quest for Anna Klein, takes place in different locations and different time periods, both of which would seem to be very far apart and yet somehow not.
Anna Klein is referred to early in the book as a chameleon, which turns out to be truer than you might like it or want it to be.
I must admit after reading the book, I went back and read through the 2001 segments and then the 1939 ones, just to discover what I may have missed. I felt I needed a clearer picture of the main characters as well as their development with respect to location and time. The use of location, intertwined with the persistence of character, may cause readers to be ambivalent about how the story plays out. I, for one, wanted a different outcome.
Still, the telling of this story never loses its substance or romance, and Cook uses the backdrop of espionage as a way of stimulating your curiosity so you stay interested. On my second read through I was able to enjoy more the descriptive prose of the author, and what a wonderful writer he is. His use of the narrator's, Thomas Jefferson Danforth's, social circumstance and storytelling ability made this a good book to read.
Special thanks to Lynne Gordon for contributing her review of The Quest for Anna Klein.
Acknowledgment: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided an ARC of The Quest for Anna Klein for this review.
Review Copyright © 2011 — Lynne Gordon — All Rights Reserved
Reprinted with Permission
Selected reviews of other mysteries by this author …
The Last Talk with Lola Faye
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Hardcover), August 2010
ISBN-13: 9780151014071; ISBN-10: 0151014078
Location(s) referenced in The Quest for Anna Klein:
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The Quest for Anna Klein by Thomas H. Cook
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format: Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-547-36464-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-36464-3
Publication Date: June 2011
List Price: $27.00
Synopsis (from the publisher): Thomas Danforth has lived a fortunate life. The son of a wealthy importer, he traveled the world in his youth, and now, in his twenties, he lives in New York City and runs the family business. It is 1939, and the world is on the brink of war, but Danforth’s life is untroubled, his future assured. Then, on a snowy evening walk along Gramercy Park, a friend poses a fateful question.
As it turns out, this friend has a dangerous idea that can change the world. Danforth is to provide a place where a “brilliant woman” can receive training in firearms and explosives. This is to be the beginning of an international plot carried out by the mysterious Anna Klein—a plot that will ensnare Danforth in more ways than one. When the plan goes wrong and Klein disappears, Danforth’s quest begins: it is a journey of ever-shifting alliances and betrayals that will lead him across a war-torn world in search of answers. Now in his ninety-first year, at the dawn of a troubled new era, he sits in luxury at the Century Club and tells his tale to the young man from Washington he has summoned, for reasons of his own, to hear it.