Icon (novel)
First edition (UK)
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| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller |
| Publisher | Bantam Press |
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Publication date
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1996 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | |
Icon is a thriller novel by British author Frederick Forsyth. Its plot centres on the politics of the Russian Federation in 1999, with an extremist party close to seizing power. Published by Bantam Books in September 1997, (), Icon became a New York Times Bestseller.
Set between July 1999 and January 2000, the story revolves around Russian presidential candidate Igor Komarov, head of the right-wing Union of Patriotic Forces (UPF).
A highly popular and charismatic politician, victory is all but guaranteed for Komarov and the UPF in the national elections on 16 January 2000. However, a secret document, later known as the "Black Manifesto", is stolen from his secretary's empty office at UPF headquarters by Leonid Zaitsev, an elderly janitor and ex-soldier who happens to skim through the document while cleaning. The document contains extremely sensitive information regarding Komarov's future policies as president, such as the restoration of slave camps, creation of a one-party state, destruction of political opponents, invasion of the former Soviet republics, and genocide of Russia's ethnic and religious minorities.
Komarov's team capture and kill Zaitsev, but not before he gives the document to the British, who later translates and shows it to influential Western leaders. Sir Nigel Irvine, former head of the SIS, comes up with a plan to thwart Komarov's victory. Searching for a suitable man to carry out this plan, former CIA Deputy Director of Operations Carey Jordan recommends Jason Monk, a former recruiter and runner of Soviet agents for the CIA and Vietnam war veteran.
In parts of the novel, there are flashbacks to earlier years, detailing Monk's background and recruitment of several Soviets as US agents. These include government figures and a physicist. However, CIA mole Aldrich Ames soon betrays these agents, along with all other CIA agents in the Soviet Union. Nearly all are rounded up by the Soviets, and are either executed or sentenced to hard labour after lengthy interrogation and torture by the ruthless Anatoli Grishin.
Colonel Nikolai Ilyich Turkin, the first Soviet to be recruited by Monk, develops a close friendship with him after Monk saves his son from dying of a tropical disease. He is, however, the last CIA agent caught by the Soviets, with Grishin supervising the capture in Berlin as Monk watches close by after their last meeting. Turkin is interrogated and sent to a labour camp. There, dying of typhoid, he pens a letter to Monk detailing his interrogation and torture at the camps, and bids a final farewell. Monk, filled with anger and grief, attacks a bureaucrat known to have aided Ames, and this leads to his expulsion from the CIA.
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