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Independence Square

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Member Reviews

This glimpse into Ukraine in 2004 is illuminating (I knew little about the Orange Revolution and hadn’t considered the political machinations behind it). The story was hard to get into, possibly due to the two timeframes - 2004 and a day in 2017 when the diplomat who seems key to negotiations between the old guard in Ukraine and the new, is now a broken man, living alone in London. I’m glad I stuck with it, as it has some interesting things to say about freedom, politics and money, but it wasn’t the gripping novel that A D Miller’s Snowdrops was, despite looking at similar themes.

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I loved AD Miller’s brilliant 2011 Man Booker shortlisted ‘Snowdrops’, so I was excited to read ‘Independence Square’, and it didn’t disappoint.

This is a brilliant contemporary thriller which chooses the corrupt political landscape of the Ukraine (and the days of the Orange Revolution) as its canvas. Miller perfectly balances the personal stories with the larger historical implications with his expert literary scalpel.

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Twelve years ago Ukraine was newly independent and Simon was a rising star in the British embassy. Then he acted to prevent a tragedy and his life was ruined. One day on the Tube in London Simon sees Olyesa, the woman at the centre of it all, and following her, Simon is plunged once more into a world he left behind.
Miller has a knack of writing international thrillers with deep human emotions at the heart. Here Simon's happy family life is ripped apart as he tries to do the right thing and his downward spiral is treated very gently. The story is sad and also uplifting as it parallels one man's life with the birth of an independent nation.

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Confusing

Simon Miller has his eyes on an Ambassador’s post and on the face of it there is little to prevent him reaching his goal. Sure, there have been a few little hiccups in his life as a career diplomat but that’s true of anyone who is at the sharp end and takes inevitable risks. However, decisions made in Kiev, when revolution was in the air in the Ukraine, led to his swift fall from grace. His chance encounter in London years later with Olesya, the girl indirectly responsible for his career’s demise brings back painful memories which he feels obliged to pursue.

Simon and Olesya are the novel’s main characters together with Kovrin who is a shady oligarch who wields power to suit his own needs. All three are inextricably linked and if it were possible to determine “sides”, suffice it to say that none would be on the same side as either of the others, yet they each have something the others need.

The novel is billed as a thriller....maybe that just the publisher’s hype as it’s not. It’s a study of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine through the eyes of those directly involved. In that sense therefore it’s in many ways slow and methodical in its approach. In many other ways it’s confusing and frustrating. It’s often difficult to determine who is speaking and on many occasions it’s impossible to work out exactly what they are saying anyway. Much of the dialogue is truncated and only understood by those already in the know and privy to previous conversations which have occurred when the reader was out of the room.

However, the writing has a cadence of its own and flows effortlessly so it’s not a difficult read although there were times when the reader will get to the end of a paragraph and wonder whether the subtleties have been caught properly. I know I did. The ending too was a huge disappointment although probably truer to life than in many other “thrillers”. However, I read to be informed and entertained and in the final analysis “Independence Square” didn’t do enough of either to warrant that extra star.

mr zorg

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

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Unfortunately I found the book disappointing despite looking forward to reading it. Although I appreciated the research that had gone into this book, I found it difficult to get into. I couldn't connect with the characters even though I usually like political intrigue and power play stories.

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Thank to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

Not knowing much about the Orange Revolution or the history of Ukraine in general, I enjoyed the political thriller element to this. However, I thought the personal side of the story let it down a bit. Focusing purely on the character of Simon meant we lost out on investigating other, particularly female, perspectives. I would especially have liked more insight into Jacqui's character, considering her actions, which might have made her less two-dimensional.

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I loved Snowdrops so was eagerly awaiting this novel by A. D. Miller in which nothing and nobody is quite what it seems.

Simon Davey is an altruistic if naive civil servant who thinks that he is helping in Kiev during the civil disturbances but in reality he is killing his own career. When years later he gets the chance to interrogate who he feels was responsible for his downfall he learns the harsh truth that he was merely a pawn for others richer and more influential than him.

It is a salutary tale but an enjoyable one that cements the author's position in the forefront of political thriller writers.

Highly recommended.

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Independence Square is the new literary political thriller from one of my favourite authors — the Booker-shortlisted A. D. Miller. The year is 2004 and The Orange Revolution has begun in post-Soviet Ukraine. Independence Square in Kyiv becomes the centre of the political protests which have erupted due to the pre-election poisoning of presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, a hallmark of Russian state intervention to eliminate political opponents, whilst Ukraine is in turmoil with citizens demanding real democratic elections and elected representatives who want the country to prosper rather than those in it merely for personal gain. It’s an intelligent and insightful depiction of shifting political power in Ukraine and Mr Miller has done a superb job of portraying the zeitgeist of the time.

Senior British diplomat and deputy head of mission in Ukraine, Simon Davey, is helping fuel Britain’s imperialist dream by influencing voters into installing the candidate that would be more receptive to Western ideologies. During his time “collaborating” with the protestors, Simon meets a young woman named Olesya Zarchenko who he later believes had a hand in his untimely sacking. Fast forward in time to London, 2017, and Simon is all but a broken man working menial, low-paid jobs and steeping in his own misery when he recognises Olesya and decides to follow her to attempt to get answers as to what exactly happened over a decade ago. He swiftly comes to the realisation that many of those with whom he was acquainted had hidden motives and were not aligned with the cause quite as he thought.

This is very much a fact meets fiction, personal v political novel and is a timely, multilayered and complex read. It demands your attention every step of the way to keep up with the fractured plot threads that eventually come together, however, you are richly rewarded for the effort, and I love this type of challenging book. It’s compulsively readable, captivating and held my attention with all of the political intrigue right from the beginning through to the denouement. It is an exploration of topical issues such as corruption, democracy, political power, integrity, imperialism, political activism, Russian imperialistic pursuits and greed, amongst others. This was a high quality, sophisticated and subtly nuanced thriller filled with palpable tension. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Harvill Secker for an ARC.

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Even if I think it's well written the story failed to keep my attention and it fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

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I liked an earlier novel I’d read of Miller’s - hmm - this one has an interesting idea and it has serious political thriller theme - and potential - we are told the story in a deliberately fragmented way so that it sort of enacts its political point - the strange, scandalous election of that year when an opponent politician was poisoned, disfiguring him just before an election - and the Russian intervention was so obvious that the protesters, in front of the world , were powerful. It is the Ukrainian young woman, brought to the leaders, a protester, whose brother says what seems to be the over-riding scenario - not enough blood was spilled for a real protest - and, in fact, soon the Russians were back in power, played brilliantly by deeming an event the fault of the foreign diplomat, Simon, who is telling this story and who lost all. There are patches of every good writing - it’s very slow - but that is not necessarily a fault in a serious novel. I was not sure always where we were or what was going down - at times the enigma was too great - the breakup of his marriage, dead he said already, plays out to the world as well, and causes him to lose his job but even more important to him, his daughter no longer speaks to him - and for some reason, we see, he thinks that probably he has acted badly in ways we are not sure of ... so a mixed ag, this one - highest intentions but I would like him to have brought me along with it all better.

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Overall this was a decent thriller. I enjoyed the first 60% or so more than the last 40 %.

I thought the first half of the book was really good, it had urgency and sense of danger and left the reader scrambling to understand who was who and what was what.

I enjoyed the setting, I think that there are a whole bunch of stories to come from this bit of history.

The second half of the book was a little too much "middle aged man having a crisis" for my personal taste.

I guessed / worked out the reveal early and it was a little disappointing that I was right and there wasn't any misdirection or twists.

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I really enjoyed Snowdrops and was looking forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, although it was well written, it didn't engage my attention and I found myself losing interest in the characters and the plot. I felt this was a shame as the events portrayed are of historical significance and I was hoping to understand them better.
Thank you to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.

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Independence Square by A. D Miller is due to be published next month. I’d read his earlier, debut, novel Snowdrops set in post-Glasnost Russia and thought it was well paced and well observed but lacked good characterisation.

I expected he would have ironed out those flaws by his second novel only to find more of the same issues. His new book has a dual time narrative (frankly I’m getting rather tired of those now), moving between Ukraine at a time of political turmoil and London, 10 years later. Connecting the two threads is Simon Davey, a former senior British diplomat who lost his job because of something that happened in Kiev a decade earlier.

It had potential but fell far short of my expectations.

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Having enjoyed Snowdrops, I was eager to read another thriller by this author. However, this book did not keep my attention and having struggled through to 86% (Kindle) I feel I've given it ample time to entice me, but have now given up the ghost. The story takes place in 2004 and 2017 (2017 chapters helpfully indicated by Roman numerals).

Nov 2004 was the time of protests in Independence Square, Kiev after Yushchenko was poisoned at election time. Simon Davey was there as a British Dipomat, who in 2017 we discover has lost his carerer, family, respectability and now works as a part time taxi driver; biding his time until his pension comes through. He sees the person he feels responsible for his downfall in London by chance in 2017 and is determined to find out why and how she betrayed him, and why she lied about having a relationship with him, ruining his marriage.

The problem with the book is that there are no characters you really bond with. The protests in the square become a sort of background noise to Simon's personal story, and nothing much really happens (at least by 86% of the book). We meet some slippery characters - you don't know whose side they're working for (apart from their own), who are trying to manipulate the outcome of the election. A political thriller which unfortunately didn't thrill me - the story seemed too detached both politically and character-wise.

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Sadly I didn't enjoy this story at all. Based on historical events nothing really seems to happen to maintain ones interest and thankfully it's a short story with no characters to feel sympathy with.

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Ever since reading A.D. Miller's Booker-nominated SNOWDROPS a few years ago, the main question I have had in mind is, when. As in when am I going to get my reading mitts on his next novel?

Like so many others have said about SNOWDROPS, Mr Miller's prose is every bit as compelling as the dilemmas it evoked. His follow up, THE FAITHFUL COUPLE, was no exception at the level of the sentence but, for my tastes, it delivered even more in terms of the characters' dilemmas, giving us insights at the granular level of the personal, what it really means to be a friend and/or a lover. With INDEPENDENCE SQUARE he's moved things on again. So, while he's still come to the party armed with more than his fair share of sentences which go off like IEDs, now, it feels more controlled somehow. Instead of throwing down exceptional prose because he can, he is deploying the pyrotechnics more sparingly, where it can be all the more devastating, laid down in the service of theme and plot.

For much of the book, I was thinking of INDEPENDENCE SQUARE as a spy novel. Then I saw another review where it is referred to as a political thriller, and I immediately realised this was more accurate. I realised then that the root of my category error stemmed from the authenticity of the setting and characterisation. INDEPENDENCE SQUARE feels woven from lived experience, like the effortless verisimilitude I associate with John LeCarré. Being someone who has never been inside a foreign embassy or, indeed, tried to mount or thwart a revolution, I loved the feeling of being on the inside, as it were, while the characters conspired in their symphony of moral and partisan dilemmas to unwittingly prove that no good deed ever goes unpunished.

Like with his earlier novel SNOWDROPS, which was set in Moscow, the settings in INDEPENDENCE SQUARE feel so authentic it seems impossible that the author wasn't there during the revolution. The references to language and culture are fascinating (I loved the translations of Babushas and other proverbs). I also really appreciate how the insides of Mr Miller's heads are so very different to the inside of my own. Simon Davey and Mr Kovrin are both delightfully jaded, and I loved their knowing cynicism which - again - takes it back to that lived experience feeling. Did it make me feel a bit sheltered and naive in places? Definitely. Still, isn't that why we read? To find out what's going on outside the walls of our own heads?

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for letting me see an ARC of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

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It;s a shame to say that whilst i had high hopes for this title it didn't meet them. I do understand that the version i read was ARC ( pre-release ) and errors are not uncommon but the story itself could have been so much more in my opinion.

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Thanks to Random House UK and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Having read A.D.Miller's majestic, Booker Prize nominated, 'Snowdrops', I was eager to get my hands on 'Independent Square'. Well, Miller has done it again. This is quite the cerebral political thriller that manages to combine the best of Robert Harris' visionary political world-building with the pathos of a Phillip Kerr novel. Set amongst the turbulence of the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, Miller has compiled a novel that is as much about the human, individual story, as it is about the broad brushstrokes of large-scale historical events. For the uninitiated, the story of the Orange Revolution, like many since the breakup of the former states of the USSR, is a typical one of political corruption and systemic failure, where democratic ideals are a fig-leaf for the continuation of totalitarianism by any other name. Perhaps the names at the heart of these stories matter less than the perpetual cycle of revolution and counter-revolution that has dogged the former Soviet States since the cataclysmic breakup of the Union. Indeed, reading 'Independence Square' almost makes you long for the halcyon days of the polarised ideologies of East Vs West, Capitalism Vs Communism. In this novel, Miller places us at the heart of these political convulsions, witnessed through the eyes of senior British diplomat, Simon Davey. In the present-day, Davey has lost everything. Bewildered and bitter at his disgrace, Davey hangs is hat on the figure of Olesya, a protestor during the tumultuous times of the Orange Revolution, to help him make sense of his past. Yet, this is not a simple tale of political cause and political effect, because nothing is as it seems in the shimmering, mirage-like, independent, 'democratic' Ukraine. The moral of the tale, if there is one, is far from definitive. A very human story of thwarted dreams and the hopes of an idealist, Davey's fate, like many inhabitants of the former Soviet States, is a futile search for meaning and rationalisation amongst a political landscape that is deliberately opaque. It is a landscape full of human shapeshifters; where oligarchs, dictators, kleptocrats, politicians, gangsters and criminals are one and the same. There is often, simply, no meaning to events that are borne out of opportunity and finitely, contingent loyalties. So, if you like your stories tied up in neat little bows then this is not the novel for you. If you are looking for an intelligently written, incisive political thriller that captures the zeitgeist of the post-Communist world, then you won't find a better example than 'Independence Square'.

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Independence Square is a low key diplomatic thriller - rather than a full on spy thriller, it lets out it secrets slowly and methodically, exposing characters and their motivation as the book develops - insights from the lead character in 2017 London adding context and texture to the view of events in Ukraine during the 2005 Orange Revolution.
The backdrop of the revolution is well sketched, the diplomatic office relationships believably flawed and the on the ground politics have a sense of verisimilitude- to an outsider anyway! The shifts between time periods act to complement each other and develop the narrative effectively in both timelines. It’s been a while since i read Snowdrops, but the sense of post Cold War Eastern Europe is my abiding memory, and Independence Square is similar in feeling, if not in subject

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AD Miller writes a smart literary political novel that looks at the events that occurred in Kiev and the Ukraine, and the Orange Revolution. It is densely written and it helps if you are familiar with the recent history, the characters involved, such as Victor Yushenko, Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, a stolen election and the protests at Independence Square, a theatre stage set of roses vs guns, with the potential for horrifying bloodshed. Simon Davey is a senior diplomat at the British embassy, deputy head of the mission, with the reputation of being a good man in a crisis. Driven by hope and political idealism, he meets a young protester, Olesya Zarchenko, a contact of his colleague, Jacqui Drayton. He plays the key background moves of introducing Olesya to a powerful billionaire, showing some sympathy for the changes advocated by the revolutionaries, looking towards Europe rather than Moscow and ostensibly preventing a national tragedy.

12 years later, Simon's life has gone down the pan, disgraced, betrayed by Olesya, the focus of media allegations, some lies, aspects true in principle if not in the details. His wife, Cynthia has divorced him, and his daughter, Nancy, does not want to know him. The diplomatic service discarded him with farcical hearings, his circumstances have reduced enormously as he drives a taxi part time, consumed by the grievances, betrayal and grudges of the past. So when against all the odds, he glimpses Olesya in London, he follows her, wanting to understand how his life became derailed. This opens the door to have his eyes opened, he and Olesya were pawns of more powerful players, kleptocrats masquerading as revolutionaries, switching allegiances when it suited them in monetary terms to do so. In a narrative that goes back and forth in time, whilst it is transparent who did betray him, it does not seem so obvious to Simon, but he does become aware that his insistence in blaming others for what happened to him is far from accurate, he has to a large extent been the architect of his own misfortune.

Miller engages in complex and nuanced storytelling of extraordinary recent Ukrainian history, of ordinary people caught up in making history, the compromises made, the corruption, and of revolutionaries who claimed power only to become bandits. Miller depicts and captures the nature of recent global political shifts where everything is for sale, with its deplorable lack of integrity, and the rise of fake news. The degraded political establishments have become little more than conduits for subverting democracy and serving the needs of billionaires and kleptocrats. This may not appeal to every reader, but for those looking for an insightful, intelligent and sophisticated novel that speaks of our times and recent political history, then look no further. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.

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