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Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project-the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Yakov Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings-Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.… (more)
User reviews
I always expected so much more from this book. 'Thrilling'? not really. 'Vaguely interesting' would be a more appropriate description.
Dr Josef Mengele is alive and kicking in Brazil, he is at the centre of a plot to begin the reintroduction of the 3rd Reich. 94 middle aged men must die on specific dates in order for the plan to come into fruition, but standing
Can they stop Mengele in time?
An interesting concept and well written, at time the plot was given away a little earlier that would have liked but all in all a very good read. Probably not one that I will revisit but one that I will remember.
4/03: Another excellent novel
Now. Strangely it seems to have got more plausible with age. Good and a reasonable thriller from that time and place.
I noticed two things immediately: first of all, the prospects of evil Nazis unleashing another nightmare in the world was far more plausible in the mid-1970s when so
The second thing I noticed is what a great story-teller Ira Levin was. The book is gripping from the first page to the last.
The book was also far ahead of its time in its discussion of the possibility of cloning. What Mengele does in this book has still not been achieved (as far as I know) with humans. But it will happen. Let us just hope that the people cloned are nothing like these boys from Brazil.
I read this book for the first time when I was in middle school on the mid-1990s, about the time that cloning went from science fiction to science fact. The idea is deliciously evil, all the more so because it is all very possible. Mengele
There are novels that are tightly linked to the time when they were published. So when read in modern times and outside the targeted-era they seem out-of-place, maybe even demode.
And then there are books that are timeless. And this book is timeless.
Sure you may say
I will say subject and characters.
Main subject is something that in the 1970's when novel was published might be in domain of the SF but today is in domain of very possible (if not already perfected) - cloning a person. But not just cloning a person to have the same genetic structure as a person donating the genetic materiel. Story goes one step more to show that in order to get a perfect (or near perfect) copy of somebody then new organism (I truly do not know how to call it - clone?) needs to be placed under the same stressors and external pressures because while genetic structure defines us great deal - our life experiences are what makes the true difference. And again it does not guarantee that end result will be 100% copy but chances grow.
When notorious dr Mengele pops up author gives us the person that most definitely had enough theoretical and [oh horrors] practical knowledge when it comes to genetics and gene manipulation.
So as you can see all the ingredients are in and story sounds very believable. Characters of Mengele and Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman are just gorgeous. One thinking about himself as a supreme being with holy task at hand and the other getting more and more ignored by others as years pass by [because world is tired of hunting the war criminals]. Even the para-military Jewish organization Ezra contacts for help seems so hungry-for-blood to Ezra that he decides to prevent them from exterminating all the Mengele's subjects. Because as Ezra says if we act as them [Nazis] then are we any better than them? Standard dilemma but coming from the concentration camp survivor after a discussion with heated youth seeking revenge and only revenge .... it has a different feeling.
And ending. It leaves you wandering. Indeed.
Excellent book, highly recommended to all lovers of good thriller.