Tue 14 Jan 2025
A 1001 Midnights Review: FREDERICK FORSYTH – The Odessa File.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[2] Comments
by Susan Dunlap
FREDERICK FORSYTH – The Odessa File. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1972. Viking, US, hardcover, 1972. Bantam, US, paperback, 1974. Reprinted many times since.
In The Odessa File, crime reporter Peter Miller finds the diary of a survivor of the Riga Concentration Camp. Miller, an extremely able journalist and a German of the postwar generation, is stunned to discover the horrors of the camp, and he sets out to track down the camp’s commandant, Eduard Roschmann (a real figure, whose story is accurately reported by Forsyth).
Roschmarm is reported to be living comfortably under a new identity somewhere in Germany.
In his search for the Butcher of Riga, Miller uncovers Odessa. a secret organization of former SS members. which is supported by the gold and jewels they took from the Jews in the concentration camps. Its aims are to aid former Nazis in returning to positions of influence in Germany and to further neo-Nazi propaganda. The anti-Nazi underground is powerful in the Germany of 1963, when this story takes place, and Miller is up against the biggest challenge of his career.
German officials who are charged with prosecuting war criminals now only want to forget; Miller gets no help from them. The Israelis want to make use of him to thwart the production of an Odessa-designed guidance system that will supposedly enable Egyptian missiles to carry bubonic plague into Israel; to them, Miller is expendable.
This tense and fascinating story reads like fact, and it is with the factual that Forsyth is at his best; he can make the assembling of a bomb in a hotel room as riveting as the best chase scene. His totally fictional characters are less sure than those based on real individuals, but Miller is a sympathetic hero.
Forsyth’s other thrillers are The Dogs of War ( 1974) and The Devil’s Alternative (1979). He has also written mainstream novel, The Shepherd (1974), and a nonfiction book, The Biafra Story (1977).
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
January 15th, 2025 at 6:59 pm
Woah, lots of Forsyth available here on Mfile (Mysteryfile) lately. Excellent.
‘Odessa File’ –part of his that great early string of his most powerful and distinctive successes.
I was impressed –when I waded into it –that while it is a rather ‘quiet’ story …narrated with a ‘quiet voice’ –still, it oozes menace and dread.
There’s no big action sequences that I recall, but it’s got that classic Forsyth potency from first page to last.
Very edgy trek through tense 1960s Germany; described by someone who seems to know the culture in high detail.
And as the above review describes, hard to tell quite where the line between fact/fiction precisely fell in this story. The investigation feels charged, ready-to-burst.
It’s a nervous-making exercise to follow Miller around on his quest, realizing –though he doesn’t –the thin ice he’s on.
You just aren’t sure what is going to happen one page to the next. But you’re rewarded with an utterly killer payoff at the finale’.
One point to clarify–is the cabal Forsyth depicts at in this tale, actually code-named ‘Odessa’? Or was it named –‘Die Spinne’ (the Spider)? Quick glance at Wikipedia …I get it now. One was a branch of the other.
Ah well. Glad to see the review posted. Is ‘Odessa File’ my favorite neo-Nazi thriller? No, but I believe its in my first five picklist (along with ‘Marathon Man’, Quiller Memorandum’, & ‘The Boys from Brazil’). ‘The Wind Chill Factor’ –though not as well known –is always my top fave in this category.
January 18th, 2025 at 12:55 am
Not my favorite Forsyth, that would be JACKAL and DOGS OF WAR, but among his best books. A with his other books he stays fairly close to known facts, and is careful not to exploit or go overboard. Here he avoids exploitation by his usual semi documentary style.