This was a Spy Espionage story. I liked that it tangled with WWII Nazi soldiers without being about the war. This one started out a little slow. It also had a lot of names, organizations, acronyms, etc., that I had to get a handle on. Once the mystery began, I was in. I liked the methodical way the plot was drawn out. It gained a nice pace and there was always something happening. So 4 stars.

When a young German journalist comes across a diary written by a deceased elderly Jewish man, he is overwhelmed by the brutality described inside it. He determines to track down "the butcher of Riga"-- a notorious Nazi responsible for thousands of deaths during World War II. His quest leads him to a sinister organization named Odessa. Taut, well written and suspenseful, this book is hard to put down.

A paperback copy of The Odessa File has been sitting on my bookshelf for probably fifteen years; I cant even remember anymore how I originally obtained it- probably at a used book sale (I always jump at the chance of picking up spy novels from some of the masters of the genre). There was a hesitance to read it for a long time (obviously), and Im not really sure why. I think it must have been because for some reason I kept confusing it with the movie version of Ira Levins The Boys from Brazil that I saw a long time ago. After all, theyre both stories about post World War II and Nazi hunters. Well, I was finally in the mood to give it a try, and Im really glad that I did! It became pretty clear to me that this was a story or movie that I had neither read nor seen before, and it was hard to put down once started. I finished it in just a few days, which is not easy for me given my hectic schedule. Forsyth has a great style, more direct that one of my favorites, John Le Carre, and he can really carry an emotional punch in just a few lines. Theres one passage that I wont forget for a long time: Youre from Buenos Aires? he asked.No.Where from, then?Jerusalem.Without knowing the context of this dialogue, one may not feel the tension in the lines, but in the context in the story, it was awesome. A writer only dreams of being able to convey such power in a scene while using such few, carefully chosen words. In brief summary, the main character, Peter Miller, is a sort of accomplished tabloid reporter. He chases an ambulance in Germany and arrives at a home where the resident, an old man, committed suicide. The police chief passes on to Miller the diary of the dead man, and this leads to an investigation and chase which is really quite fun to follow. Ive read some other reviews that state this is not even close to being Forsyths best novel, and so I suppose Ive got some great reading to look forward to. The Day of the Jackal, the original directed by Fred Zinnemann, is probably one of the best espionage/political thriller movies of all time, and I had the great pleasure of seeing it many times over during a period when film was front-and-center in my life, so Ill put some of Forsyths other novels in line before that one, but its always great when one finally discovers such a great thriller writer, even if it did take several decades.

An early work from the father of the modern espionage thriller, and it contains my biggest pet peeve: a protagonist doing something incredibly stupid. And its okay. 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. Its about how the diary of a Holocaust survivor who killed himself leads to the investigation The ODESSA, a real-life Nazi organization that used stolen wealth to further their twisted philosophies. To varying degrees Forsyth always used fiction to expose reality. He is always entertaining while doing so.

I have seen the film a few times and feel that the film is better than the book which is strange as its usually the other way round. It didn't hold the suspense that the film had.