The Forbidden Zone - Softcover

Hetzer, Michael

3.27

11 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061030457 ISBN 13: 9780061030451

Publisher: Harpercollins, 2000

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In the dying days of the Cold War, two astrophysicists working on a joint U.S.Soviet science project fall dangerously in love, and every step American Katherine Sears takes to find Victor's imprisoned brother pits them against his fellow communists and his mother, a highranking Soviet minister. Reprint.

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Review:

Daniel Silva author of The Unlikely Spy Intriguing and entertaining....The dying days of the Soviet empire come vividly to life in Hetzer's compulsively readable new novel.

Kirkus Reviews Well-paced and exciting, with crisp dialogue, believable setups, and first-rate atmosphere: a page-turner in the best tradition of le Carr� and Martin Cruz Smith.

Robert Harris author of Fatherland Fascinating.

Robert Strauss Last U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, First Ambassador to the Russian Federation The Forbidden Zone is a first-rate thriller, a terrifying account of the cruelty, the betrayals, and the countless victims of the communist machine. This book caught my imagination from the first page to the very last.

From the Author:

Desperation and Hope in "The Forbidden Zone"
Do you love thrillers? I do. I’ve devoured them all my life -- from the World War II conspiracies of Ken Follett and Robert Ludlum to the master spy games of John le Carre and Frederick Forsyth, to the courtroom dramas of John Grisham and Scott Turow. So when I set out to write my first novel, I resolved to write the sort of book I like to read -- a page-turner that transports me to a new world. "The Forbidden Zone" is the result.

Now, I’ve lived and worked as a journalist in Moscow for years, so Russia was a natural backdrop for my thriller. But what time period would I choose?

My choice may surprise you. For me, there is no more fascinating year in Soviet history than 1984. Why? This was the final year of the decaying Soviet Union, of the doddering old guard who ruled from hospital beds. It was the year before Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and began the reforms that would sweep away the Cold War. It was at this moment that the USSR reached its sickest and most corrupt state. The system was discredited top-to-bottom and not even the perpetrators of the farce that was Communist rule could stomach it any longer. The country no longer needed prison camps, it WAS a prison camp. It was like those forbidden zones that ringed every Soviet prison camp, the narrow strips of ground in which any man could be shot on sight. Where the Bolsheviks once killed with guns and slave labor, Brezhnev’s cronies killed with desperation, lies and vodka. Looking back, it’s hard to believe this Orwellian world existed barely fifteen years ago.

And so I chose 1984. But there are pearls in this oyster bed of tragedy, men and women who were willing to turn their backs on everything in order to make a stand in the name of what was right, in the name of their children. The men who ruled "The Forbidden Zone," however, weren’t about to give up without a fight, so the personal cost of the battle would be high on both sides. The outcome transforms everyone -- the players, the nation, and ultimately the world. I hope you are moved by their bravery. I know I am.

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