The turning point is when Levy’s brother is murdered. Once I got to that half-way point, however, my attitude completely changed and I raced through the book. There’s some action in the prologue and in a side plot that didn’t make sense until Levy gets caught up in the conspiracy at the half-way point. It didn’t help that I was waiting for the novel to kick into gear for most of the first half. Instead of making the novel feel “gritty” and realistic, it just feels like paint-by-numbers characterization. With the exception of Levy and one or two other characters, everyone says or thinks horrible things about African Americans and Jews. Levy, has a motor mouth and is frequently obnoxious rather than amusing. Set in 1973, the book is filled with edgy slang that has not aged well. I loathed the first half of Marathon Man. The original novel did have more of both, but it didn’t make for a better tale. (Also, I’m a sucker for stories about tracking down Nazis who escaped Europe after the war.) I fell into the trap of expecting the book to be better than the movie because there would be more background and plot. I picked this book up because I remember enjoying the film version, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Sir Laurence Olivier. William Goldman’s Marathon Man wasn’t half bad.
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