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A review by beataf
The Russian Five: A Story of Espionage, Defection, Bribery and Courage by Keith Gave
3.0
The story here is incredible, and I loved learning the history and context of the Red Wings franchise and the league in the 80s and 90s. It's an astounding story.
Unfortunately, the book itself is rather poor. Most of it reads like columns copy and pasted from the author's day job at the newspaper, except no one did a second pass to take out repetitive passages or even to lightly edit the last hundred pages. The unbelievable, beyond-Hollywood arc of events kind of falls flat in this treatment. The pacing is off and lack of clarity on temporal progress makes it difficult to read (what season is this? what year? who are we talking about?) - luckily for Gave, his subject matter writes the drama itself and the reader leaves the book happy.
Unfortunately, the book itself is rather poor. Most of it reads like columns copy and pasted from the author's day job at the newspaper, except no one did a second pass to take out repetitive passages or even to lightly edit the last hundred pages. The unbelievable, beyond-Hollywood arc of events kind of falls flat in this treatment. The pacing is off and lack of clarity on temporal progress makes it difficult to read (what season is this? what year? who are we talking about?) - luckily for Gave, his subject matter writes the drama itself and the reader leaves the book happy.