Friday, June 8, 2012

Contra-ODESSA - Alex Markman

Inspired by actual events, Contra-ODESSA brings the reader back to 1960s Latin America.

Needing money to fund their activities, Soviets send a team of KGB operatives to track down Swiss bank account numbers from Nazis who stashed fortunes obtained from prior looting. Young American secret service agents seek the source of funding for Latin American radical groups.

Utilizing all their training and hiding behind secret identities, agents of both teams push through physical, ethical, personal, and moral challenges in order to help their team succeed.

An inevitable clash of the two spy networks and the former SS organization ODESSA that follows is violent and brutal. Its casualties are not only people but also morality and law.

What a struggle to read! So many times I just wanted to give up and quit the book, but I was determined to finish it for this review.

The story seems like an interesting idea, but, I'm sad to say, it was not well written. The main story arc got lost for many pages at a time, making it very hard to follow. Many times, an entire chapter (or the majority of it), felt completely irrelevant to the storyline.

I enjoyed the characters; they were intriguingly dynamic. However, they seemed to have a hard time conversing. A lot of the dialogue seemed forced, awkward. A lot of the story, in general, was forced and awkward.

I would not recommend reading this book. I struggled to get through it and did not enjoy reading it.

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