Tanner on Ice

by: Lawrence Block

Published by: Penguin Group

Reviewed by Bob Pike CSP, CPAE-Speakers Hall of Fame

Evan Tanner, the spy who lost his sleep center in the Korean War, has returned. It’s been 25 years since the last book about Tanner. No one wants to read about an old spy – so Block uses cryogenics to bring him back at the same age as in his last book. He’s been kidnapped and frozen. He’s still in the prime of life, but virtually everyone he knows is now old – or dead. Except Minna, his ward, who is now old enough to be the love of his life – but he can’t bring himself to think of her that way. Tanner still has his rent-controlled New York City apartment, thanks to her ingenuity – and the city thinks he’s lived there the whole time.

So Evan has to play catch up and figure out what to do with his new feelings. And what better way to do that than a new assignment from his super-secret intelligence agency – an assignment to Burma (as he remembers it) or Myanmar as the military junta insists that it be called. So Evan covertly enters the country, comes under the scrutiny of the local police who find a corpse in his room, meets a beautiful woman in distress, is hounded by the secret police, and makes his way across Burma on foot, disguised as a begging Buddhist priest, to meet up with the resistance.

Block’s attention to local detail will provide insight into the country and culture as it exists today as you marvel at Tanner’s facility with languages and his easy adaptability in the face of adversity.

Armchair Interviews says: This is an easy and a light read.