Those who already know him like Olen Steinhauer’s work, which has been compared to Philip Kerr’s and Alan Furst’s. I would agree with that second comparison - he is a similarly dispassionate writer. And after reaching mid-way through book - the first I have read - I was glad to have made the effort. Switching between short chapters, multiple points of view, and two time streams took some effort. Try it. I found it paid off.
some reviewers
In some ways, given his unusual name, Olen Steinhauer’s publishers might do better to change his biography - he lives in Hungary, but he is a transplanted American. THE ISTANBUL VARIATIONS is so amoral, and so steeped in the attitudes of the police of the communist eastern block, that readers might think they were reading books written there too, if the back blurb did not give the game away.
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Liberation Movementsdo