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    The Venona Cable: A Thriller
    The Venona Cable: A Thriller
    The Venona Cable: A Thriller
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Venona Cable: A Thriller

    Written by Brent Ghelfi

    Narrated by Stephen Hoye

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The past erupts into the present when the police arrest Alexei Volkovoy, known as Volk, at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport and take him to a murder scene. At first, the dead man appears to be just one more victim of Moscow's out-of-control violence. But Volk soon discovers that he is a famous Hollywood filmmaker whose reputation was destroyed in 1995 when the CIA released decrypted documents from the Venona cables-the top-secret American and British crypto-analysis of Soviet messages that implicated the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, Kim Philby, and hundreds of other Soviet spies. Tucked inside the American's pocket is a marked-up Venona intercept that refers to a Russian used as a spy by the Americans, a man who may have been Volk's illustrious father.

    Aided by his female partner, Valya, Volk's only hope to clear his family name will be to solve this murder and discover how the Venona papers relate to his father's disappearance, while powerful forces want to keep him from investigating the past and to remove him from the present.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJan 2, 2010
    ISBN9781400183708
    The Venona Cable: A Thriller

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    Reviews for The Venona Cable

    3.5/5

    36 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Got this book as an early reviewer. I thought this book was pretty good. It had enough action to keep it interesting (although a little slow moving at parts) and the first person point of view of the main character helped to bring the story into the readers' head more. I enjoyed following the trail of evidence as Volk tried to discover the truth about his father, but I have to admit that the ending was a little anti-climactic. I expected more after such a build up with the leader of the Janus project and Volk meeting towards the end. Overall, good book, I would buy it at the stores to check it out, and an interesting USA/Russia plot line.
    • 1/5
      The first book in the series was excellent, often surprising. The second book was written more sloppily, as if Ghelfi were writing a screenplay. The tone was sometimes jarring, but it was still acceptable. This third book is terrible. Volk is out of character throughout, and very little happens (I gave up on page 181).
    • 3/5
      This is the 3rd book in the series about Alexei Volkovoy, a veteran of the Russian army from the war in Chechnya where he lost his left foot after being held captive and tortured in a Chechyn prison. In the first 2 books, we learn that Volk (as he is known by friend and foe alike) is still employed by the Russian military in some covert capacity, but he is no "good guy". Also earlier in the series, we learned that Volk's father was military who was killed shortly after he was born. In this book, we come to realize that Stepan Volkovoy wasn't killed while on duty during the cold war as previously believed, but defected to the United States, taking a secret spy plane with him. The question now is, was Stepan a traitor, or was he a false defector who entered the United States to spy for the Soviet Union after winning the trust of the Americans? Volk is sent to America to investigate after an American agent is found dead in a Moscow warehouse owned by Volk. I was so excited about this book that I made the effort to read the first two books in the series before starting it. I really wanted to love them. But I just can't. Like the first two books, this one is confusing and unnecessarily complex. I had trouble remember who worked for whom, and was never able to determine who the good guys were and who were the bad guys. In these books, as in real life I guess, there is no such thing. The chapters are short and the action is frantic. No one's true motivations are known until the very end of the book. An interesting complication here was caused by the story being told from the POV of a Russian. When talking about espionage, the "traitors" or "enemy" in this book were the ones who supported the United States. There are Russians and Americans both whose loyalty is in question. Normally, I enjoy twists and turns in the plot, but this book had more than I could keep up with. An attempt was made at the end to "tally up the score", but that information was too little too late for me. As before, I am characterizing the series - and this book - as "good but not great". It has a lot of potential, but just misses the mark as far as I'm concerned.
    • 5/5
      Brent Ghelfi's third book with Volk as the protagonist is another winner.Volk is arrested at the Moscow airport and brought to his warehouse. He is shown the murdered body of a former American cinematographer. He's told that the vic. Everett Walker had been in Moscow looking for him and he had a photo of Volk's father who supposidely disappeared 30 years ago. Volk is questioned, beaten and finally released in order to investigate what Walker was up to. Volk agrees in part because he wants to find out about his father and clear his father's name.Volk finds a document hidden by a sophisticated photographic technique. The document was attached to Walker's driver's license. The document, called the Venona Cable revealed that Roosevelt and Churchill had a meeting where they discussed opening a second front against Germany. Information about this meeting came from a secret agent code named, "19". In the investigation, 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 for a firm called Loreli Industries.Capt. Oleg Basoff tells Vok that Volk's father actually worked for him and that he was really an undercover agent. Then Volk's boss, General Novoskaya arranges for him to go to America. However, before he does, a policeman named Rykov tells him that he just learned that someone killed Volk's father in 2004 and the policeman thinks it was BAsoff who had him killed.When Volk arrives in Albuquerque he is met by KCIX agent Elizabeth Rhodes who seems sympathetic and helpful. We do learn that the head of Loreli Industries, Alfred Reese is working on a project called Janus. Reese has an employee, Santorini, who does his dirty work and Reese tells him to take care of Volk. Then we learn that it was Santorini who actually killed Volk's father.Volk is an excellent character. He is street smart, tough yet tender when with his girlfriend, Valya. He is emotional about his father and loyal to his country.The action paced plot is complex, yet works well. The various agents are well depicted and properly dealt with.The author's first two books with Volk as the main protagonist have already been optioned for film and this novel should take its place with them. Well done and recommended.
    • 3/5
      This was not a quick or easy read for me but I stayed with it since I received it through the early reviewers program-part of my difficulty may have been that I had not read the earlier books. While I thought it started out very slow I am glad I stayed with it, the more I read the more it grew on me. Overall it was a very good book with characters you do not know whether to like or not and international espionage galore. I gave it only three stars due to the slow beginning.
    • 4/5
      A bit muddled at the beginning but the deeper you go the more roads there are to follow and you have no idea where they go. In fact you are held in suspense until the very last page. You may think that you know where it is going but you will be wrong.Good read, well woth the time.
    • 4/5
      This was a very good book. I really enjoyed the writing. It was a very cerebral thriller, not the shoot-em up techno thrillers of Clancy, Thor or Flynn, but a laid back tightly-written mystery. Written from the perspective of a Russian Spy, it was difficult not to feel for the "enemy" silently hoping for a favorable resolution.
    • 4/5
      I had such fun reading this book. Alexei Volkovoy is a Russian spy/secret agent that is trying to find out, among other things, if his father was a double agent for the U.S. It starts fast and keeps moving with plenty of twists and turns. My husband couldn't wait for me to finish so he could read it. I will be looking for more books from Brent Ghelfi.If you are a spy thriller fan or just want a fast paced exciting story, this is the book for you.
    • 4/5
      I’m a fan of the Len Deighton school of spy novels set in the heart of the Cold War. When the wall fell, the relevance of the Cold War tales crumbled. Ghelfi brings a fresh twist to the spy novel with his Volk series, the story of Russian agent Alexei Volkovoy. I’m not sure whether he is really an agent, a criminal, a national hero, or an undisciplined thug and that makes the story interesting and compelling.I enjoyed the book, but the characters are hard to like. I usually have a hard time putting down a book once I get into it, I want to know what is going to happen next to the lead character. With Volk, I never really made a connection. I enjoyed the story, but I was satisfied with one or two chapters at sitting. His female partner is at risk throughout the book, and I was never concerned about what might happen to her. By the end of the book, I was not really sure what Volk did or did not accomplish, but that might be what Ghelfi intends. Volk is incredibly perceptive, saving himself from being blown to bits because someone took a bit too long to accomplish a simple task, but then he fails to recognize the danger when a police stakeout appears to be incompetent.The twists and turns happen fast and can be hard to follow, but the story line is plausible and in the end, it was a good read. I look forward to reading the earlier volumes in the series.
    • 4/5
      Alexei Volkovoy is the latest Russian secret agent to hit literature. He is, as is mostly everything Russian, multi-dimensional, with a strong undercurrent of illegality. The story involves Volk,s father, and whether he was a spy for Motherland Russia, or for the USA. The scenes from Russia are spot-on, leaving a feeling of of grit throughout. There always seems to be a darkness invading the air in Moscow. Industrial polution, or political intrigue, they both contribute to this effect. The political/military/intelligence communities all appear to live by the motto, "What's in it for me?"While I loved the Russian scenario, the book lost some of it's hard-core grit when Volk comes to the US to learn about his father's involvement in the cold war.Note to Brent Ghelfi: In the next Volk book, keep him in Moscow.
    • 4/5
      This one was an interesting one. It falls into the vein of a Vachs or maybe even a Charlie Houston novel. The difference is the protagonist is a Russian spy and the violence isn't quite as graffic. The hardest thing is keeping everybody straight, as the plot constantly shifts and even at the end I'm not quite sure what just took place. I'm intrigued and would like to read more of this author. Strongly recommended.
    • 4/5
      A fun spy read - it has action, witty patter, and manages to be the rare spy thriller that handles the mystery well. More often, it seems like the author gives up on the mystery partway through and just leaves the characters in suspense. Ghelfi manages to leave more unanswered than "How will our hero get out of this?" and I appreciate him for it.I'm surprised at how well having a Russian protagonist works. It's a nice change from the usual American and British ones I usually see. A change of perspective helps this book (series) stand out.When reading, it does feel like it's not the first book in the series, but I don't think it detracted from the story, or that it ruined the previous books for me. If you're a fan of spy novels, I would definitely suggest this book. I am looking forward to reading more by this author.