"From youth to adulthood, Rob Littell spent 20 years alongside John F. Kennedy Jr.—through laughter and sorrow, joy and heartbreak. Now in this moving and poignant memoir of their touching friendship, Rob Littell shares his story with listeners
Rob Littell was a freshman at Brown when he met JFK Jr. Although Littell came from a privileged background, it was worlds apart from the glamorous life of the son of the late President and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Eager to be accepted on his own terms, Kennedy responded to Littell's irreverence toward his celebrity and they became close friends.
Littell recounts dinners at Jacqueline Onassis's apartment—where she surprised him with his favorite of specially burned hamburger—and weekends at her retreat in Martha's Vineyard, where she critiqued their touch football. As students, Littell and Kennedy bummed around Europe. Later, they shared apartments in New York. Later still, Littell was part of John's secret wedding to Carolyn Bessette on Cumberland Island, Georgia and three years later a pallbearer at his funeral.
This is an intimate, detailed and affectionate memoir of an unusual young man by a close friend."
"A tight, captivating story of a naïve child’s encounters with a Soviet dictator, the twentieth novel by Robert Littell
After the sudden death of his nuclear physicist father and the arrest of his mother during the Stalinist purge of Jewish doctors, young Leon Rozental—intellectually precocious and possessing a disarming candor—is hiding from the NKVD in the secret rooms of the House on the Embankment, a large building in Moscow where many Soviet officials and apparatchiks live and work. One day after following a passageway, Leon meets Koba, an old man whose apartment is protected by several guards. Koba is a high-ranking Soviet officer with troubling insight into the thoughts and machinations of Comrade Stalin.
Through encounters between a naive boy and a paranoid tyrant, Robert Littell creates in Comrade Koba a nuanced portrayal of the Soviet dictator, showing his human side and his simultaneous total disregard for and ignorance of the suffering he inflicted on the Russian people. The charm and spontaneity of young Leon make him an irresistible character—and not unlike Holden Caulfield, whom he admits to identifying with—caught in the spider’s web of the story woven by this enigmatic old man."
"An Israeli government minister is assassinated in the home of his mistress. Days later, Elihu, an aging and decorated Mossad officer, leads his final raid, killing a Hamas leader in his bed while barely escaping with his own life.
Out of this familiarly cyclical scenario, the action moves into the near future, when the global community, united under the leadership of a visionary female president of the United States, brokers a major compromise between Israel and the Palestinian authority in order to snuff out the violent flashpoint of global terrorism. It seems to work until a well-known fundamentalist rabbi is taken hostage by a legendary Palestinian terrorist.
Ferociously suspenseful and brilliantly topical, Vicious Circle breaks down an entire culture of violence into the corrupted consciences that embody it."
"A brand-new novel from New York Times bestselling author Robert Littell, A Plague on Both Your Houses is a thrilling tale of love and war.
On Christmas Day, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a ten-minute televised speech announcing his resignation as Soviet president. Moments later, with little pomp and less circumstance, the red flag was lowered from its floodlit perch atop the Kremlin, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Into the vacuum—before a new democracy had time to put down roots—surged the Russian mafia, supplying what the new state could not: krysha, or “roof”—protection for the privately owned businesses sprouting across the country. Rivalries turned bloody as Moscow’s Jewish mafia battled the Ossete vory v zakone (literally “thieves-in-law”) for control of the city. Caught up in the mayhem, Yulia, only daughter of the Jewish mafia godfather, and Roman, only son of the Ossete mafia godfather, are obliged to navigate the minefield of a star-crossed love affair as they attempt to escape a destiny that appears preordained.
A Plague on Both Your Houses is the fictional story of one bloody episode in Moscow’s Great Turf War, when clans fought brutally in the streets and the future of the Russian nation was anything but assured."
"Before there was The Company, Robert Littell made a name for himself with this cold war thriller.A.J. Lewinter is an American scientist, for years an insignificant cog in America's complex defense machinery. While at an academic conference in Tokyo, Lewinter contacts the KGB station chief and says he wants to defect. He tantalizes the Russians with U.S. military secrets he claims to possess, but is his defection genuine? Neither the Russians nor the Americans are sure. The superpowers are locked in a deadly contest that exploits friendships, destroys loyalties, and manipulates human beings as expendable pawns— as Lewinter is swept up in a terrifying political chess match of deceit and treachery."
"Crisis constantly lurks around the corner, monitored by spies who are always with us. In this breathtaking thriller, a spectacular mole hunt is under way, one that involves not just the CIA—'The Company' to insiders—but Mossad, MI6, and the KGB as well.
Robert Littell, master of the espionage novel, has crafted an exciting story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an enemy that is amoral, elusive, and formidable. The Company also lays bare a warfare within the CIA itself, adding another dimension to the spy vs. spy game."
"Crisis constantly lurks around the corner, monitored by spies who are always with us. Master of the espionage thriller Robert Littell has crafted a breathtaking story of the legendary CIA—''The Company'' to insiders—and a spectacular mole hunt that involves Mossad, MI6, and the KGB.
The Company tells the thrilling story of agents imprisoned in double lives, fighting an enemy that is amoral, elusive, and formidable. It also lays bare a warfare within the company itself, adding another dimension to the spy vs. spy game."
