"The Armor Thieves" by Mark Budman

A thriller with a scifi/fantasy element and a delightfully amiable and likeable protagonist. When engineering genius Andrey returns to Berengaria, an East European socialist dictatorship, he discovers parts of a suit of armour that used to belong to Queen Berengaria, from whom he is descended, which have the power to render the wearer invulnerable. Despite his father's profession of secret policeman, and despite being newly married, Andrey decides to steal the armor and use it to help a group of rebel guerrillas.

I felt that the portrayal of life under a dictatorial autocracy had great verisimilitude. The security systems at the archive where Andrey works border on the incompetent; they weren't much better at the military research labs where his wife works. There was petty corruption, there was inefficency, one got a sense of the inconveniences of life, but there was never a real hint of menace.

Less plausible were the characters. Andrey is not only descended from royalty but, as he tells us, at Harvard "I graduated in record time. I had a few job offers from America’s most prestigious companies, but I ignored them." (Ch 1) His friend Viktor is "a math genius, an ace code breaker, and perennially unlucky with the girls" (Ch 1). As I have said elsewhere in this blog, I find multi-talented characters unrealistic. Fortunately, however, Andrey actually seems really rather normal. He gets a job as an archivist (and even that may be due to his family pulling strings) and marries his long-time girlfriend. More of an Everyman than a Marty Stu.

Nevertheless, the most interesting characters were those baddies who were conflicted between good and evil.

The story is mostly told from Andrey's viewpoint which provides a delightfully witty commentary. Some chapters are narrated by others. The end of the book suggests the likelihood of a sequel.

It's a good yarn and a definite page-turner.

Selected Quotes:

• "I’m trapped in an underground room, which for me is low on the list of 25 Breathtaking Places to Visit Before You Die. It’s stuffy and smells rotten and evil as if a vampire or a werewolf had finally expired after being hit with too many silver bullets or wooden stakes." (Ch 1)
• "Dad dragged the biggest skeleton out of the family closet and plopped its smelly, yellow bones on the desk in front of me." (Ch 1)
• "no one likes spies except maybe their superiors, and the spy novel readers." (Ch 5)
• "As they say in my country, it’s as easy as pissing on your fingers." (Ch 12)
• "Vesna’s and Nadya’s Dad hates birthdays, especially his own. At his fiftieth, he said that every birthday reduces the chances of the next one." (Ch 20)
• "The best attack is a 50-50 mixture of randomness and predictability. It would confuse anyone, even the attacker. And life is too short for squandering it on defense." (Ch 20)
• “People say life is a jungle,” he says. “Life is not a jungle but an African savanna. The antelopes are marching on, and the lions are pulling out and devouring the random ones. People are like that, but instead of lions, we are randomly killed by diseases and the enemies of the state. Or the state itself.” Vesna feels obligated to reply. “It’s not that random,” she says. “Young and fit antelopes generally survive, and so are young and fit people. I mean they survive diseases, not the enemies of the state. It’s a 50-50 mixture of randomness and predictability.” (Ch 23)
• "How do I get rid of useless knowledge so I’d have more room in my head for something useful?" (Ch 29)

June 2023

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God