Review: Legends by Robert Littell

Whenever there's a TV series or movie that comes out based on a book, I try to read the book before I indulge in the new thing. I will venture no remarks on the forthcoming series Legends as it is being done by TNT here. Things there will be different than they are in the book, that is both at this point blazingly obvious and unavoidable when translating between book and the screen. Today I will tell you what I think of the book.

 

The book is not in a genre I normally read, though I'm pretty into the action hero thing so spy thrillers are occasionally on my list of reads. I know I must drive algorithms crazy trying to figure out what I like best. But I digress. What is different about reading a book outside of mystery, romance, fantasy, or historical novel, is as a writer my internal dialog about the book, no matter how well written, is more commentary about the craft than the story itself. Did the plot points go where I anticipated? Why, yes, yes they did. Did I have the central mystery of the book solved by the end of the second chapter. Yup to that also. Should I have been able to do it? Of course and if you've ever been a Sherlock Holmes aficionado, then you should be able to as well. Was the book well paced? I got through it in less than a week. So yeah, I think it was well paced. Was the book entertaining? I have not the first clue, though I might go back for another Littell book in the future should this thing take off and all of his works get Hollywood treatment.

 

The book is about retired spy Martin Odum who has gone into the private detecting business. He's having memory and identity problems as a result of psychological traumas that happened when he was a deep cover CIA operative. His motivations are simple, he wants the story of his life to make sense and he doesn't want the CIA to tell him which cases he can or cannot take. He's suspicious of his client and his friends, as he should be because he gets betrayed at almost every point in the book. He has to figure out who is behind it and find a missing husband.

 

Martin's emotional journey, in and of itself, is interesting. I'm not certain Mr. Littell has spent any time pondering just who exactly he is and as such in odd places, Odum's journey seems a bit false or perhaps the character incomplete. I have personally spent time pondering my identity and how the many roles I play integrate into the person I am. And yeah, I'm a girl prone to overthinking these things and I get Odum is a character who doesn't. But Odum neither spends time in the book pondering how he feels about having this divided life, even when questioned about it directly, nor worries that he's forgot something important that could leave him vulnerable. It seems the thesis here that Odum is, as he says in the book "imperfectly sane" and that explains everything.  

 

Odum's journey, even for a spy novel, is a bit improbable or perhaps what I fail to appreciate is in the spy game, just how few plot options there are for danger. The same plot point was recycled three times in the last half of the book. Something, as an aspiring author, I would be reamed out about.

 

I can say I found Stella, the eventual love interest likeable and the hard nosed Crystal Quest, Martin's former boss almost plausible. If you're going to watch the TV show, you probably shouldn't read the book. If you like spy thriller's this isn't the best. If like deeply psychological questions of identity and how the choices made change us, it might be worth a read. I might even read the book again, but I'm glad I got it from my local public library.

 

Love,

 

Melanie