Exhibiting all the storytelling skills that made her earlier books so readable and popular, Pulley also offers a piercing study of how a police state deforms individual psychologies, personal relationships and professional ethics ... A KGB officer is among the many three-dimensional characters who give Pulley’s narrative human coloring as it hurtles through one horrifying revelation after another toward a bravura (albeit implausible) climax ... Pulley’s broad perspective distinguishes her work from that of more-routine thriller authors. Studded with memorable characters and deepened by its exploration of thorny moral issues, The Half Life of Valery K is gripping popular entertainment with a pleasing intellectual heft.
A compelling story told in a conventional way ... Pulley’s clear, detailed writing style, along with the many-pronged span of this novel keeps the pages turning. The story is interesting, but the storytelling is somewhat bland. Valery is your typical blinkered genius: a character whose naivety (years in a gulag have left large holes in his knowledge) paired with supernatural intelligence, serves the plot but feels like a trope. There is also a love story wedged awkwardly in, along with some forced references to gender politics. And while the book’s attempts to capture the paranoia of living behind the Iron Curtain are adequate — rooms are bugged, characters speak in code, and so on — the prose never mimics this paranoia, and we don’t feel quite as mired in layers of deception as we should. The stakes bear only the illusion of grandeur. The mystery isn’t all that mysterious. Problems resolve themselves neatly. Far too neatly.
Pulley expertly reveals the mysteries of City 40 piece by piece, along with the secrets Valery himself is keeping ... a compelling window into a terrifying and lesser-known aspect of the Cold War. With unexpected twists, a paranoid atmosphere and a fascinating narrator, this novel is a superb work of historical fiction as well as an excellent mystery.
Galvanizing ... Pulley’s brilliantly conceived, vibrantly realized, and complexly suspenseful tale is all the more resounding in the glare of Russia’s recklessness at Chernobyl during its latest, horrific invasion of Ukraine.
Scientific research, KGB shenanigans, queer love, and the heartache of suffering children are just a few of the enriching intricacies Pulley traces with intelligent wit and confident narration. A gifted writer of well-drawn characters, Pulley has given the nuclear noir genre a fresh and stimulating take on Chernobyl-style terror.
Provocative, unsettling ... [Pulley's] dark humor, which turns on the blind faith given to Soviet authority figures despite their outlandish claims, combines with complex characters and a clear understanding of radiation science to yield an explosive blend. The chilling result feels all too plausible.
