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Bob Klayman is a “private investigator” on parole for both operating without a license and shooting a suspect with an unregistered gun. Desperate for work, an offer to work for a mobster operating out of Malibu for big money seems enticing. All he has to do is fly halfway across the world to the city of Odessa in Ukraine and smuggle a brief case containing a Rembrandt painting across the border into Prague. Ostensibly the purpose is to return the painting to the Jewish owners whom Goering stole the painting from. But he begins to wonder why they want him to do the deed and wants to back out. When he finds both his pet dog and a friend he paid to walk him murdered, the not-so-subtle message makes him feel pressured to go along with the plan. Events from then on seem to overtake him, leading him into one untenable situation after the other.
This first person tale told in fifty-two short chapters clips along at a fast pace. The viewpoint character is a desperate man. He seems to be a victim of constant betrayal, duplicity, and backstabbing, usually motivated by thirst for power or money. His own unwillingness to settle for less than all or nothing makes him vulnerable to other men’s ruthless manipulations. The plot is intricate because of these machinations, a great deal of the suspense arising from the plot twists emerging from them. The portrayal of life in post-Soviet Ukraine, where wealthy gangsters and corrupt oligarchs run the show, is fascinating. Themes of power, victimization, corruption, and even a hardened idealism emerge as the main character rebels against his powerlessness and poverty by taking on those who would use him. Victories are short-lived, however. Corruption holds the trump card.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review