Ah, that makes more sense now. Faulks was so keen to emphasize that Scarlett's father was Russian, so I was surprised by the last name that didn't sound Slavic. The attempted pseudo-political correctness really skewed the time period for me even more.

Perhaps I've been jaded by the movies, but the villains' deaths were rather lackluster. What happened to Gorner reminded me a bit of Dr. No falling into the radioactive vat - kind of anticlimatic there.

I can't wait to see Quantum of Solace!