Now coming back to the novel: The level of technical detailing and history may feel a bit of overdone for some readers, but this is a true classic work in the thriller genre, that can give fans of historic thrillers volumes of fun. This is the first review in this series. Written: Nov - 9 - View all 31 comments.
Aug 18, Stephen rated it liked it Shelves: audiobook , mystery , , historical-thriller. International Intrigue Secret Societies Interesting Plot Compelling Main Character Uh, Compelling Main Character Main Character we care about Excitement and Suspense Excitement, Suspense Oh dammit, crap, hellsville!!
On paper this book had 4 or 5 stars written all over it and I really thought I was going to love it. A well-written political thriller involving the hunting down of a Nazi war criminal and a worldwide secret organization of former SS members trying to reclaim power Apparently, much, because in the end, it fell shorter than "Mini Me" which left me floating in disappointment.
The title of the book is derived from the German Acronyn O. The novel postulates that there is a world-wide organization of former Nazis established prior to the end of World War II to assist SS members in escaping Germany for places of safety e.
The book takes place in shortly after the Kennedy assassination. There are two different plot threads in the story.
The primary plot involves a German crime reporter named Peter Miller who comes into possession of the diary of a Jewish holocaust survivor who has recently committed suicide.
Miller decides to determine if Roschmann is still alive and to track him down. Almost immediately, he begins to face resistance from his superiors and local law enforcement and the influence and machinations of ODESSA are slowly revealed. The plan is to use warheads containing radioactive material that will kill everyone in the Jewish state. However, in order to succeed, the warheads will need a highly efficient guidance system as the rockets will need to hit precise locations in Israel in order to accomplish its goal.
Throughout the story, we are given extensive background through the diary of the atrocities committed by Roschmann and his eventual escape at the end of World War II the book is worth reading for this alone as the experiences documented here are tragic and heart-breaking but very, very authentic.
The book is also well written and the historical details included were compelling though at times very disturbing to read. In the end, there were two things that I thought the story lacked. The first was an engaging main character. I thought Peter Miller, while well drawn, was not quite as interesting as watching paint dry.
I just never really cared what happened to him so it took a lot of the enjoyment out of the story. The second thing the book lacked, which may very well be related to the first, is any real excitement or suspense. I would have settled for a cheap thrill. Overall, while I loved the idea of the book, the execution was too pedestrian for me to give it more the 3 stars.
This one View all 5 comments. Set in the early 's in West Germany with some scenes from Israel and Nasserite Egypt , this electrifying book has all the elements of a good historical spy novel - suspense,danger,action,human drama as well as a lot of food for thought.
We come across a lot of interesting real figures from the time such as Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal and the head head of MOSSAD Meir Amit as well the evil psycopathic SS Officer Eduard Roschmann who in the novel is hunted by a young German journalist , Peter M Set in the early 's in West Germany with some scenes from Israel and Nasserite Egypt , this electrifying book has all the elements of a good historical spy novel - suspense,danger,action,human drama as well as a lot of food for thought.
The novel itself begins with the news of the assasination of John F Kennedy But the ordinary grassroots characters too are equally believable from Millers simple but good hearted and beautiful girlfriend Sigrid Rahn to the Israeli agent Uri Ben Shaul alias Josef to doctors and nurses,civil servants ,secretaries and housemaids.
The novel is largely based on a true story and includes several important lessons from history. It lays bare the satanic evil of the Nazi SS while also oulining that ordinary Germans are good people ,as described in the novel by excerpts from the diary of holocaust survivor Salomon Tauber which is a very instructive and insightful piece in itself. It also shows the high level of cooperation between Nazi exiles and Arab states in their evil plans to destroy the tiny state of Israel The attempt to do so still continues today and should be exposed for what it is -naked anti-semitism and hatred.
View all 4 comments. Apr 05, Sonia Gomes rated it really liked it Recommends it for: People everywhere, so that we do not repeat this terrible period in the History of Men.
Shelves: good-but-not-fantastic , read-long-ago , world-war-ii , holocaust. It is amazing that despite a full fledged war raging all around the world, the Germans had the time, the patience, the resources and the desire to annihilate millions of men, women and children.
Every aspect of the annihilation was planned meticulously, from the rounding up to the extermination in gas chambers or crematoria.
When you think that it is people going to such lengths to murder their own friends and neighbors your mind does a blank, it refuses to think, to accept that there can exist such people. But sadly they do. What is even more amazing is that there were people who also went to a great deal of trouble to hide, help and aid the Jews or 'undesirables' their friends. What gives simple men this tremendous courage knowing if they were caught, a certain death awaited them. What is amazing too is the trouble, countries and friends went succor the Nazis when they were fleeing Germany at the end of the War.
We do know that the Nazis were accepted with open arms in many Latin American countries. Were these leaders so compassionate? Was greed that motivated them? Do we all have a price?
If and when we take a good look at the Holocaust, read about it, maybe put ourselves in the shoes of the victims, difficult but yes, in the shoes of the perpetrators, we are faced with a host of questions that we should ask ourselves. And once Hitler was in power, non-Nazis were totally helpless. It took Hitler only a few weeks to turn Germany into a bomb-tight police state. And once this was accomplished, every opposition or dissent was equivalent to suicide. What do I know of being so frightened, so frightened that I cannot think straight, let alone stand up to the might of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, but through all that, despite being frightened out of their minds, despite being in grave danger, terrible danger to their own lives, many Germans did save Jews.
There are no words for such heroism. Thank you Lilo, for showing me another angle. View all 14 comments. May 16, John Culuris rated it really liked it. An early work from the father of the modern espionage thriller, and it contains my biggest pet peeve: a protagonist doing something incredibly stupid. Peter Miller is a reporter, not a trained undercover agent. Through the convergence of bad luck, laziness, entitlement, and not truly believing all the precautions taught to him were necessary, he blows his cover almost immediately.
The story never really hinged on this anyway. To varying degrees Forsyth always used fiction to expose reality. He is always entertaining while doing so.
View 1 comment. Shelves: wwii , spies , , thriller. And it is a brilliant thriller about a post WWII German journalist his gets his hands on a diary of a Jewish man that survived the horrors of Riga. And if you knew never anything about some of the horrible crimes committed during the last great war you find out galore of the crimes committed by the Nazis especially by those of the SS.
The book sets Peter Miller out on a search for the commanding officer of the Riga death-camp and as only Forsyth can write it we find out how difficult it is in even a post WWII Germany to find out about war crimes. Even I as a kid was somewhat surprised while playing with German kids when I was younger about the collective guilt that was still carried by the German people this was the early seventies.
We meet some once famous people like Simon Wiesenthal who explain about the SS excesses and how they organised to disappear before the war was over and how the Wehrmacht was used to win time at the losing end of the war for the SS to lose themselves sometimes even in plain sight. This thriller set in a post WWII Germany resembles a nightmare of the variety of sheer unbelievably reality.
I was always surprised how few big and responsible Nazi bigwigs were actually brought before a court of law. This book goes some way explaining it. The thriller aspect of the book was very well done and puts you on the edge of your seat. The motivation of the main character is revealed at the end, which is why I subtracted one star as I figured it out quite early on in the tale and it took some away from the thriller aspect. The sideshow about the rockets in Egypt, influential former Nazis still at large in Germany and the Israeli secret service made this a brilliant thriller that was difficult to stop reading.
So I finished it in one long and way to warm summer day 37 degrees Celsius in the shade. This was one of the early Forsyths' I never got to read when I was younger with me buying a set of the three early Forsyths' in hardcover it was bound to be the first one to be read as I had never done so before. Forsyth is perhaps one of the better thriller writers of this era and well worth a reading if you have not done so before.
The story he weaves are full of scary details and yet very well written and difficult to stop to read once you have started it. View all 3 comments. Oct 14, Terence M Often away with the pixies rated it it was ok. Hunting Nazis, particularly SS Nazis, still had some cachet when "The Odessa File" was written in and the deeds of famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, who had aided the Mossad division of the Israeli Secret Service in identifying and capturing Adolph Eichmann only twelve years earlier, were in the news quite regularly.
Remembering recently that I had enjoyed "The Odessa File", I decided to read it agai Hunting Nazis, particularly SS Nazis, still had some cachet when "The Odessa File" was written in and the deeds of famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, who had aided the Mossad division of the Israeli Secret Service in identifying and capturing Adolph Eichmann only twelve years earlier, were in the news quite regularly. It was an ok second read, but I think maybe my memories of films I saw, books I read, parties I attended, forty and fifty years ago have dimmed somewhat, but at least I still have them!
I've been crawing a good espionage novel, and after a quick glance at my shelf decided that Frederick Forsyth was my man.
After reading a journal left by a Jew who comitted suicide, young journal I've been crawing a good espionage novel, and after a quick glance at my shelf decided that Frederick Forsyth was my man.
After reading a journal left by a Jew who comitted suicide, young journalist Peter Miller is determined to infiltrate the organization and find one man - Eduard Roschmann, "the butcher of Riga". And so begins a work which should be one of the finest examples of political fiction, knowing the author's reputation and the notoriety of his subject. That night I was just a reporter with a nose for a possible story.
Sign In. Play trailer Drama Thriller. Director Ronald Neame. Top credits Director Ronald Neame. See more at IMDbPro. Trailer The Odessa File. Photos Top cast Edit. Mary Tamm Sigi as Sigi. Martin Brandt Marx as Marx. Hans Caninenberg Dr. Ferdinand Schultz as Dr.
Ferdinand Schultz. Heinz Ehrenfreund Shapira as Shapira. Alexander Golling Colonel as Colonel. Robert Vogler, the bank's chief spokesman in Zurich, could not say whether such an account had ever existed but he said that all funds belonging to Germans were frozen after the war, their owners vetted, and those traced to known Nazis handed over to the Allies.
Or that a meeting of high-ranking SS officers and industrialists took place at the Maison Rouge hotel in Strasbourg in to discuss ways of moving Nazi gold out of Germany and France.
Yet Mr Forsyth always insisted that large elements of his book were true, based on information from "friends in low places". Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies.
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