The Confessions of Gabriel Ash- Book Review

An international tale of dark secrets, espionage, and corrupt world governments sets the stage for Lee Polevoi's newest spy thriller “The Confessions of Gabriel Ash.” The story takes place during the time of the cold war with Russia set in a 1982 time frame. Gabriel Ash is an ambassador to a small fictional European country, Keshnev, with strong Russian ties. He finds himself conflicted between ties to his homeland versus the life he’s built in America often disregarding known consequences. Ash is now confined in a castle-turned prison cell with a tape recorder, microphone, and blank tape somewhere in Eastern Europe trying to figure out his captors' next move, how he can escape and stay ahead of them. The storyline is in two parts that take the reader back and forth between the events that led up to Ash's imprisonment, his spectacular fall from grace, and how revenge and redemption will ultimately play out as Ash is forced to confront a lifetime based upon deception and lies. At times I did find Ash's moral compass a bit off-center.

Ash's narrative throughout the story is a series of confessions that are being recorded. Retelling his life's story with all the predicaments he has been embroiled in is told in a voice that ranges from skepticism to mockery and cynical humor. As a reader, often I felt like I was in the middle of a James Bond movie wondering how Ash would manage to get himself out of predicaments that were seemingly insurmountable. The narrative device telling the story from the character's point of view worked well in many scenes. The realities of espionage and world government corruption provided the storyline with lots of tension, suspense, action, and even a bit of romance. Themes of communism versus capitalism and differing perspectives from characters are some focal points of the narrative.

Lee Polevoi is a gifted storyteller. Sentences are carefully crafted with power-packed words that move the storyline along from the deceptive luxurious life of New York with its sights, sounds and smells to the harsh mountainous settings of Keshnev’s Lesser Alps and neighboring villages during the Cold War era. The cast of characters is well-developed, solidifying each of their roles and connections to one another giving readers insight into their motivations. The book is definitely a page-turner with an unexpected ending.

ALL ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lee Polevoi is the author of a new novel, "The Confessions of Gabriel Ash," and previously published "The Moon in Deep Winter." He has received a Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship and a Chesterfield Film Project screenwriting fellowship, sponsored by Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment. A short film based on The Moon in Deep Winter screened at Cannes and New York's Chelsea Film Festival. Lee is a graduate of Amherst College and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.