The book literally begins with a bang, as two cars careening through the streets of mid-1970s Manhattan collide with a fuel tanker, resulting in a terrific explosion. Certainly an attention-grabbing set piece, but the events the explosion sets in motion lead to far more compelling reading. From that moment on, a collision between profound evil and a seemingly hapless Everyman becomes inevitable.

  The driver of the VW is Kaspar Szell, father of Josef (The Angel of Death) Mengele protégé Christian Szell, a Nazi dentist ironically labeled by the Jews he tortured and stole from in Auschwitz as Der Weisse Engel, the White Angel, due to his prematurely white hair. Ever since the end of World War II, Kaspar has been channeling funds to his son through various (and surprising) means. His death forces the younger Szell to leave his refuge in Paraguay and travel to the U.S., in order to recover the diamonds that are the source of his ill-gotten wealth. Emerging from his lair, he has one paramount thought: is it safe?

  Meanwhile, Goldman introduces the young, brilliant, but insecure historian, Thomas Babington “Babe” Levy, and the ultralethal spy, code-named Scylla, who works for a shadowy U.S. intelligence agency. Babe is our stand-in, the Richard Hannay of this piece. Scylla is a man we instinctively fear, but whom we all want to be, a lethal, cunning, experienced master of tradecraft who stars in several tense set pieces overseas before returning to America, where his path crosses those of Szell and Babe Levy in thrilling and surprising ways. The resulting mayhem leaves two of these players dead, and another deeply shaken and forever changed.

  Most books are lucky if they have one memorable scene or plot twist; Marathon Man has many. Indeed, if classic thrillers involve surprises, turnarounds, and reversals, then Marathon Man truly deserves the label. Among its many stunning sequences:

  The opening automobile “duel” between Rosenbaum and the elder Szell;

  Scylla’s unplanned meeting with his opposing number “Ape” in an airport;

  The stunning revelation of Scylla’s true identity as Babe’s beloved brother, Doc;

  Babe’s torture at the hands of the sadistic dentist Szell, containing one of the most recognizable phrases in all of thriller literature (and of cinema, with Dustin Hoffman as Babe, and Sir Laurence Olivier as Szell), the infamous and chilling “Is it safe?”

  Babe’s escape from Szell’s clutches, when he hallucinates running partners: fellow marathon men, Nurmi, and the barefoot marathoner, Bikila;

  Babe’s abrupt betrayal by Doc’s associate, Janeway;

  Szell being recognized by his former victims in New York’s diamond district;

  Babe’s capture of Szell just as the ex-Nazi thinks he’s going to get away (along with Babe’s killer line, “It’s not safe.”);

  The book’s last scene, as Babe, shattered by all that has happened, contentedly skips the last of Szell’s impressive hoard of diamonds across the Central Park reservoir.

  Throughout, Goldman operates as methodically as a bricklayer in constructing his tale. Literally nothing is wasted. Seemingly disparate pieces of information ultimately tie together, just waiting for the right piece of exposition, or revelation, to explain it all coherently. If Goldman provides an early mention of a gun or a hidden knife (Szell’s blade is dubbed “the cutter”), he’s certain to use it later. If he mentions Babe’s toothache or his obsession with running, it’s sure to play a part in the subsequent action. The list goes on and on. The Puerto Rican stoop kids who live to taunt Babe play a surprising role in a later chapter, as does Babe’s impossibly wonderful new girlfriend, Gretchen. The mention of Scylla’s paramour, Janey, who we assume is a woman but turns out to be the man, Janeway. In the end, the book is a perfect example of the Butterfly Effect, with small things leading to bigger ones, one set piece building on another until the bloody crescendo of the final pages.

  What else is notable? Well, a classic villain, a Nazi, when that idea wasn’t grossly overused. The repeated, effective use of certain phrases, such as “Babe was candy,” indicating extreme violence to come. The villains’ comeuppance, brilliantly handled. The way Goldman gets into the heads of even the most minor of characters and brings you there too. The evocation of classic thrillers such as The Thirty-Nine Steps, or Goldman’s subtle nod to Mickey Spillane’s I, the Jury in Babe’s last exchange with Szell. Finally, the fact that the hero is not some superman, but a human being who can be hurt—even though he emerges triumphant, Babe certainly doesn’t emerge unscathed.

  There are so many more things to discuss, but I think I’ll end this here, to let you, Educated Reader, discover the remainder of this book’s many wonders on your own—after all, I know that having read this book once, you’re more than ready to dip into it again.

  Hank Wagner, an attorney, lives in northwestern New Jersey with his wife and four daughters. Besides being coeditor of Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads, he is a coauthor of The Complete Stephen King Universe and Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman.

  67

  James Grady’s

  SIX DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1974)

  Mark Terry

  James Grady (1949–) wrote his first novel,Six Days of the Condor, at the age of twenty-four. It became a monster success and was turned into a blockbuster film starring Robert Redford, titled Three Days of the Condor. Born and raised in Shelby, Montana, Grady worked various odd jobs including grave digger, farm tractor jockey, rock picker, hay bucker, janitor, and movie projectionist before he graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in journalism. In 1971, he took a position as a staff aide for the Constitutional Convention in Montana and spent a year fellowship with Senator Lee Metcalf’s (D-Mont.) staff in Washington, DC. From there, Grady worked as an investigative reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. After four years, he left that position to concentrate on writing fiction and movies. Grady has had a successful writing career with a total of fourteen novels, mostly thrillers and mysteries, short fiction, and as a scriptwriter for film and TV. His script was the basis for the movie Legacy, and his short story, “Kiss The Sky,” was the basis for an FX network project. Grady also served as a staff writer/story editor for a Stephen Cannell TV series in the 1980s,Top of the Hill, and created a police drama for CBS TV,D.C. Cops. He also received the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir, Italy’s Raymond Chandler medal, and a Mystery Writers of America Edgar nomination.

  It is almost impossible to divorce the novel,Six Days of the Condor, and the film,Three Days of the Condor, from the years in which they came out— 1974 and 1975, respectively. In 1974, the U.S. saw Richard Nixon resign from the presidency because of the Watergate scandal, and in 1975,Watergate continued with the trials and guilty verdicts against Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman. The CIA was being investigated for domestic abuses, and Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces. It was a period in which trust of the U.S. government was at a low and paranoia over what the government might be doing was at a high.

  Six Days of the Condor drops into this environment a tightly structured thriller about a rogue CIA group that is smuggling drugs and murdering people in the U.S. to cover up for it. Every headline was an advertisement for the novel and the movie.

  At this time, espionage novels fell into two broad camps—the over-the-top James Bond thrillers and the talky, brooding spy novels of John le Carré and Len Deighton.Six Days of the Condor cuts right through the middle. The book’s main character, Ronald Malcolm (renamed Joe Turner in the film), is an Everyman. A bookish, sarcastic, mildly rebellious guy who finds himself pursued by extraordinary forces, relies on his brains, his wits, and more than a little luck to stay alive and uncover the conspiracy that surrounds him. His paranoia is real—everyone he knows is out to get him; even the people on his side are using him to their own ends.

  It seems a little odd these days to consider that when Condor appeared in bookstores there were only a couple books published about the real workings and history of the CIA. Now entire sections of bookstores are dedicated to factual accounts of the agency. The novel is written with a distant, almost journalistic omniscient point of view, filled with descriptions of how the CIA is structured, how it works, and what legislation created it. In addition to providing a fairly riveting thriller narrative, the novel provides that basic of the thriller genre—esoteric information.

  In a peculiar sidebar,Condor had an effect on the real world. The CIA division that Malcolm works for, Section 9, Department 17, CIAID, is tasked, the reader is told, with keeping “track of all espionage and related acts recorded in literature. In other words, the Department reads spy thrillers and murder mysteries. The antics and situations of thousands of volumes of mystery and mayhem are carefully detailed and analyzed in Department 17 files.”

  More than thirty years after writing the book, Grady learned that several KGB generals had seen the 1975 film and were convinced the CIA was spending more money and effort on analytical work than the KGB was. As a result, the KGB created—according to the book Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America after the End of the Cold War by Pete Earley and Sergei Tretyakov—the NIIRP, or the Scientific Research Institute of Intelligence Problems of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB. The NIIRP, they write in their book, was where, “Some two thousand employees there sifted through hundreds of newspapers and magazines each day from all over the world, looking for information that might prove helpful to the intelligence service.”

  As much as you can’t separate the Condor novel and film from the era in which they were released, it’s difficult to separate the novel from the film, partly because they came out so close to one another. Grady relates that his manuscript was pulled out of the W.W. Norton slush pile and the film rights were handled—on behalf of the publisher—by William Morris. The Sydney Pollack-directed film must have gone into almost immediate production, because it was released after the hardcover publication, but before the mass-market paperback publication.

  Speaking about the novel and the film, Grady says, “Condor became like some existential stone thrown into our culture ponds. I’m so lucky to be the guy who got that stone dropped in his hand.” As far as the film, he says, “I got to watch the best professionals in Hollywood turn my slim first novel into a far superior, classic, important movie. Few writers have been so lucky in Hollywood.”

  Three Days of the Condor makes significant changes to the book, but even there they resonate—at that time and today. Although in the novel the conspiracy involved a CIA cabal smuggling morphine, in the movie it was changed to a plot to overthrow Middle Eastern countries for oil—our first energy crisis was ongoing, although thirty-five plus years later this plot resonates stronger than ever. Grady originally planned for there to be five Condor novels, although only one follow-up was written,Shadow of the Condor, which Grady indicates was his least successful “literary” work, although it did hit the New York Times best-seller list and royalties continue to trickle in. “Midway through Shadow’s birth process, I realized that Redford had absorbed Condor so completely and that he was not going to do a series of movies like Sean Connery, and thus . . . I let Condor go.”

  That’s probably a good thing. One of the most powerful things about Six Days of the Condor is how the Everyman uses his wits and guile to get out of trouble. It’s a beautifully crafted character arc. Malcolm goes from being a naïve slacker to a brutal killer who’s lost almost everything and can trust no one. It’s doubtful, in retrospect, whether Malcolm could have been a successful recurring character. Still, Grady crafted a singular character and story that has stood out in popular culture ever since. It was even mentioned in the George Clooney/Elmore Leonard film Out of Sight, has appeared in spoofs on The Simpsons and on Seinfeld as “Three Days of the Condo,” and was sampled on a Radiohead tune.

  Author John le Carré said, “If you write one book that, for whatever reason, becomes iconic, it’s an extraordinary blessing.”

  Grady echoes the sentiment. “For whatever reason—the convergence of time and circumstance and my imagination—I’m extraordinarily blessed. And awestruck.”

  Mark Terry was born in Flint, Michigan, and grew up in the neighboring suburb of Davison. He graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in microbiology and public health and spent eighteen years working in clinical and research genetics at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit before turning to full-time freelance writing and editing. He has published five novels, including three that feature Department of Homeland Security biological and chemical terrorism troubleshooter Derek Stillwater: The Devil’s Pitchfork, The Serpent’s Kiss, and The Fallen. Several of his novels have been reprinted in French, German, and Slovak. He has written literally hundreds of articles, book reviews, white papers, and market research reports focusing on the U.S. healthcare system and biotechnology.

  68

  Jack Higgins’s

  THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1975)

  Zoë Sharp

  Jack Higgins is the pseudonym of prolific British thriller writer Harry Patterson (1929–). Born in the northeast of England, he moved to Northern Ireland at an early age and was raised in Belfast during the turbulent 1940s. He left school without qualifications and joined the army, where he served as a noncommissioned officer on the East German border. Later, he took evening classes to gain a degree and became a teacher, but always wanted to write. He is now the author of more than sixty novels, translated into fifty-five languages, and sells hundreds of millions of copies worldwide.

  Patterson’s first novel,Sad Wind from the Sea, was published under his own name in 1959. He used various pseudonyms, starting with Martin Fallon for The Testament of Caspar Shultz (originally The Bormann Testament) in 1962; Hugh Marlowe for Seven Pillars to Hell in 1963; and James Graham for A Game for Heroes in 1970. Under these and his own name, Patterson wrote a remarkable thirty-five novels by 1974, all of which were fast paced and had the right ingredients, but none of which elevated him to stardom. Then 1975 brought the advent of his most successful pseudonym, Jack Higgins, and The Eagle Has Landed.

  I vividly recall seeing a television interview with Higgins many years ago in which he recounted a chance encounter with an old teacher in the early seventies, whose counsel had a far-reaching effect on his writing. Basically, Higgins was told to concentrate far more on character. Higgins heeded this advice with a vengeance, creating not only one of his most enduring characters—Irish gunman and poet, Liam Devlin—but also the Boer spy, Joanna Grey; the half-American, half-German paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Steiner; and crippled Winter War veteran Colonel Max Radl of the Abwehr. With these fascinating fictional creations, Higgins intersperses genuine historical figures: Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

  The plot of The Eagle Has Landed extrapolates from Hitler’s delight at the success of Otto Skorzeny’s 1943 “Operation Oak,” which involved rescuing the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from his prison cell at the top of the ten-thousand-foot Gran Sasso. Higgins imagines that, with a little careful political maneuvering from Himmler, Hitler then gave the order, “Bring me Churchill out of England.”

  From this simple, high-concept starting point, Higgins presents his story as a thinly disguised exposé: “At precisely one o’clock on the morning of Saturday 6 November 1943, Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and Chief of State Police, received a simple message.The Eagle has landed. It meant a small force of German paratroops were at that moment safely in England and poised to snatch the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. . . . This book is an attempt to recreate the events surrounding that astonishing exploit. At least fifty percent of it is documented historical fact. The reader must decide for himself how much of the rest is a matter of speculation.”

  This false document technique is further enhanced by the way Higgins begins the novel with his own first-person narrative, in which he explains how he first stumbled on the story of the German paratroopers buried in a Norfolk churchyard. The book then switches to a third-person, fairly linear narrative, in which Higgins rejects the opportunities for minor characters to play a more significant role—the Special Branch detectives on Devlin’s trail, for instance—in order to drive the story toward its ultimate conclusion. In this, the writer really shows his skill, because although we know from the outset that Churchill was never snatched out of England—just as de Gaulle was not assassinated by a lone hitman in Frederick Forsyth’s earlier novel,The Day of the Jackal (1971)—we quickly become caught up in just how close the operation came to success.

  The real strength of the novel is the characterization. Apart from the unmitigatingly evil Himmler, most of the major characters are satisfyingly complex in their motivations. Higgins paints the hero, Steiner, with particular care. His bravery was displayed on the Eastern Front (the book was written when the Cold War was at its height) not the Western. Steiner’s mother was American, giving him the possibility of mixed loyalties. He behaves honorably in a dishonorable situation—the rescue of a Jewish girl during a ghetto clearance in Poland—after which he and his men are condemned to a suicide posting, destroying Allied shipping in the Channel. Steiner’s father has been arrested by Himmler, and his life hangs in the balance, depending on the success of Steiner’s mission. He is a man with few options. Later, in Norfolk, his men break their cover as Polish paratroopers to save the lives of two village children.

  The other enigmatic character is Liam Devlin, IRA gunman, philosopher, and general rogue, who should be a villain but again behaves with honor, taking an instant dislike to a British traitor, and earning the undying love of local girl, Molly Prior, by protecting her from violent assault, acting against his orders to keep a low profile. Higgins returned to the character of Devlin for several later books, starting with Touch the Devil in 1982, and even constructed a direct sequel, called The Eagle Has Flown, in which Steiner is resurrected as a pawn in another of Himmler’s schemes.