The Venona Cable

Those who have read the two previous Volk novels will find this one more thoughtful although still full of the violence and action one expects in this series. The plot is more complex and quite pleasingly so. Especially impressive for me was the moments when we're given the perspective of the antagonist Alfred Reese at various points culminating in a climactic chapter in which the two perspectives are alternated.Others have gone into more detail of the plot, but I suggest finding it for yourself. This isn't exactly a roller coaster of a novel, but there aren't very many points at which you'll feel like putting it down.

"The Venona Cable" is the third action thriller from Brent Ghelfi. Russian agent and criminal Alexi Volkovoy "Volk" is back. He's arrested at the Moscow airport and brought to his warehouse. He's shown the murdered body of a former American cinematographer. The victim is Everett Walker. He had been in Moscow for only a short time but was searching for Volk and had a photo of Volk's father, a man who had supposidly disappeared thirty years ago. Volk is questioned by the police, beaten and released so that he could investigate what Walker was doing. Volk finds that Walker hid a document in his driver's license. He used a sophisticated photographic tecchnique to do so. The document called the Venona Cable revelaed that Roosevelt and Churchill had a meeting called the Trident Conference where they discussed opening up a second front against Germany. Info about the conference came from a secret agent code named "19". Later, Volk meets former KGB officer Isadora who worked with Volk's father in America. She tells him that his father worked for the aerospace industry at a firm called Loreli Industries. Capt. Oleg Basoff orders Volk to his office where he tells Volk that Volk's father actually worked for him and that the man was really a double agent. Volk must be on the right track, his boss, General Nonoskaya arranges him to go to America to learn more of his father's activities. However, before he leaves, a police officer named Rykov, tells Volk that he just learned that someone killed Volk's father in 2004 and thinks Basoff had him killed. When Volk arrives in Albuquerque, he is met by NCIX agent, Elizabeth Rhodes. At the Loreli offices, Alfred Reese is protecting information about a new project that he doesn't want Volk to interfere with. He tells his employee, Santorini to take care of Volk. Then the reader finds out who killed Walker and Volk's father. Volk is an excellent protagonist. He is street smart, tough but still has a tender side when with his girlfriend Valya. He is emotional about his father and shows a longing for the childhood he missed sharing with him. Volk is also admirable in his loyalty to his country. The action paced plot is complex yet works well. The various agents are well depicted and are properly dealt with. Ghelfi's two previous novels with Volk, "Volk's Game" and "Volk's Shadow" were both well received and have been optioned for film. This fine novel should join the ranks. Well done and recommended.

The third Volk novel is very different from its predecessors. It is more cerebral and introspective. While the accustomed violence is present, it plays only a peripheral role in the plot. Volk is arrested when an American film director and long-time Communist sympathizer is found murdered in Volk's warehouse. He is freed to find out the real murderer. A secret cable from 1943 is found on the victim, one of many deciphered by the NSA. It describes the decision by FDR and Churchill in 1943 regarding a Second Front, and was sent by an agent known as "19," giving Stalin an edge in negotiations with the Western Allies. Among the mysteries is a picture found on the murder victim of himself and Volk's father, who supposedly defected to the United States. The question, of course, is whether Volk's father really defected or was a double agent. Volk never knew his father, and part of his quest is to discover the truth about his father as well as his efforts to uncover the reason for the death of the filmmaker. The plot takes Volk to the United States where he follows the trail from Los Angeles to Albuquerque to Los Alamos. Along the way there are more murders and attempts on Volk's life. Written with the author's usual intensity, the novel takes an deep look at the past and the present, depicting the craft of spying, looking at the subterfuges of the CIA, GRU and other government agencies, asking who is a double agent and how each side tried to steal from the other to achieve superiority during the Cold War (and beyond?). Highly recommended

The murdered corpse of elderly American cinematographer Everett Walker is found in a Moscow warehouse. The Russian police charge master criminal and espionage agent Alexei "Volk" Volkovoy with the homicide for several circumstantial reasons one of which is he made pornographic videos at the "studio". Additionally Walker was blackballed by Hollywood in the 1990s due to the release of the previously Top Secret Venona Cables that incriminated him with many spies. He had come to Moscow seeking Volk. The American possessed a microdot of a decrypted 1943 cable concerning a meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt and a photo of Walker with Volk's disgraced father, Stepan, who mysteriously vanished in 1974. Volk knows the only way he can prove his innocence is to investigate his father in order to ascertain whether Stepan was a GRU military intelligence operative or a traitor. With only Valya at his side, he quickly realizes both the Russians and the Americans are clueless as to whom the genuine agents were, who were the moles, and who were the triple/double crossers, but each side wants Volk stopped from uncovering the truth. This action-packed thriller grips readers from the opening moment when Volk realizes how much trouble he is in and how little time he has to extract himself from pending disaster. Readers will enjoy his latest exploits as he struggles to stay one step ahead of the Russian and American police and espionage groups. The ties to 1943 are brilliantly forged as Volk learns that the sins of the father are often carried on the backs of their offspring. Harriet Klausner

One of the best new writers to appear in the thriller/action genre during the last two years is Brent Ghelfi. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, he's the author of the exciting "Volk" series--Volk's Game and Volk's Shadow. His first two novels introduced ex-Russian Army commando, Alexei Volkovoy (a.k.a. Volk), who now works undercover for the Russian government, specifically the General, and has managed to infiltrate the Russian mafia. Of course, the General still uses Volk for outside work and counterintelligence operations, which is like using a chain saw, instead of a pair of scissors, to cut a piece of paper because Volk takes no prisoners. This character is a human wrecking machine, and you don't want to get in his way, or hurt any of his friends, not if you want to be around to see sun come up. In The Venona Cable, the third book in the series, our slightly tarnished Russian hero has to confront the possibility that a dead man in Los Angeles may have been his father, a former Russian Air Force pilot who was later recruited by the GRU and then defected to the United States by flying a highly secret test plane out of the Soviet Union just before Volk was born. It all starts when Volk returns to Moscow from Macao after killing Lachek, the man who tortured him in Volk's Shadow. The ex-soldier is arrested at the airport and then taken to an underground dungeon where he's held in isolation for a week, during which time he's informed about the dead American and that he's the only suspect in the case. All of this information, however, is delivered in between beatings by the Russian guards. Fortunately for Volk, he's rescued by the General and released from prison before being permanently injured. When he finally meets with his superior, he's given a file on his father. What Volk realizes after reading the information is that his father may have been a double agent, planted in America by a former Army officer named Bassoff, so that he could spread disinformation that was mixed in with classified material. Along with that is the revelation that there's still a Russian double agent (#19) in the United States, someone who's been delivering secret intelligence to Russia for over sixty years. With the subtle agreement of the United States government, the General sends Volk to America so that he can find out something about his father and hopefully something about Agent 19. When Volk arrives in America, he soon realizes that not only does someone want him dead, but also just about every single person that he comes into contact with during his search for information. Because Volk seems to be the common denominator in all the murders that take place after his arrival in the United States, it isn't long before the LAPD and the FBI are after him, not to mention the one person who wants him buried before he can discover the true identity of Agent 19. It's going to take all of Volk's survival skills and instincts to match