On a quiet street in a peaceful English village, two small brothers buy candy at a sweetshop and then disappear in a wrenching explosion. A tough New York cabbie and his streetwise girlfriend submit without protest to the perverted demands of a total stranger. A young couple with everything to live for suddenly and inexplicably take their own lives.
With these violently shocking, seemingly unlinked events, Brothers—the chilling, fast-paced new novel by master of suspense William Goldman—begins. Yet alongside these startling scenes comes an even more astonishing revelation. For on an isolated island in the Caribbean, a man slowly regathers his once-lost strength. His fingerprints have been removed, his voice thickened, his face altered beyond all recognition. This is the man thought by the world of Marathon Man to be dead, a consummate, seemingly indestructible killing professional who has been summoned into service once again by the ultrasecret Division. Entering an unfamiliar, irrevocably changed world after his six-year limbo, he soon learns the terrifying thrust of his mission: There is going to he a world war. America is going to start it. He is only one of three people alive who knows it. And he is the single man designated to stop it.
To accomplish this almost impossible task, he must uncover a doomsday scenario of bioengineering gone amok. He must ally himself with the very man who hates him the most. He must set in motion his ultimate plans for the obliteration of an evil conspiracy, propelling himself and one other man—a man as close to himself as the bond of brothers can make him—toward their final, triumphant reunion. If both can survive...
In this stunning sequel that is even more imaginative and relentlessly gripping than Marathon Man, William Goldman returns to the brand of storytelling he knows best, a deftly rendered world of global intrigue, personal loyalties, and unending surprises.
From Library Journal
In this belated sequel to Marathon Man Goldman jumps several years into the future of the Levy brothers. Thomas is now a history professor at Columbia, and Scylla, the lethal secret agent left for dead in New York's Lincoln Center, has been restored and reactivated as a top-level killer by his shadowy masters in the U.S. government. In the nether world of Washington policymaking science has become a major weapon in a bizarre struggle between hawks and doves, and Scylla's assigned role is to eliminate two scientists whose invention of new creative killing methods may be more dangerous than the problem they set out to solve. The imaginative, if sometimes bizarre, plot winds its way through seemingly unconnected episodes of considerable violence before reaching an ironic conclusion which pulls all the threads together.
A thriller novel. A sequel to the 1972 Marathon Man.
**
From Publishers Weekly
At one point in Goldman's new book, the main character peruses the movie listings and complains about the inadequacy of most sequels. Sadly, he might have added this novel to the list. Resurrecting Scylla, the agent from Marathon Man who is the brother of Babe Levy, hero of that earlier book, Goldman offers an unbelievable story that lacks the plot cohesion and tenacious suspense of its predecessor. Believed dead, Scylla has in fact been hidden away, his face altered, his voice changed, making him the perfect killing machine. His assassin's skills honed to perfection, he is brought back into action by "Division," the mysterious agency for which he works, as part of a plan to permanently alter the balance of world nuclear power. The author spices the plot by introducing a host of super-secret weapons, among them a drug that forces compliance, a liquid that induces suicide, and an almost superhuman killer simply known as The Blonde. Goldman (Magic, Heat, Boys and Girls Together, etc.) is best at depicting nonstop action, and there is plenty to spare here, much of it wildly imaginative. But it is all window dressing, as the book's basic premise fails to hold together. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild dual main selection. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this belated sequel to Marathon Man Goldman jumps several years into the future of the Levy brothers. Thomas is now a history professor at Columbia, and Scylla, the lethal secret agent left for dead in New York's Lincoln Center, has been restored and reactivated as a top-level killer by his shadowy masters in the U.S. government. In the nether world of Washington policymaking science has become a major weapon in a bizarre struggle between hawks and doves, and Scylla's assigned role is to eliminate two scientists whose invention of new creative killing methods may be more dangerous than the problem they set out to solve. The imaginative, if sometimes bizarre, plot winds its way through seemingly unconnected episodes of considerable violence before reaching an ironic conclusion which pulls all the threads together. John North, LRC, Ryerson Polytechncial Inst., Toronto Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
From the Inside Flap
On a quiet street in a peaceful English village, two small brothers buy candy at a sweetshop and then disappear in a wrenching explosion. A tough New York cabbie and his streetwise girlfriend submit without protest to the perverted demands of a total stranger. A young couple with everything to live for suddenly and inexplicably take their own lives.
With these violently shocking, seemingly unlinked events, Brothers—the chilling, fast-paced new novel by master of suspense William Goldman—begins. Yet alongside these startling scenes comes an even more astonishing revelation. For on an isolated island in the Caribbean, a man slowly regathers his once-lost strength. His fingerprints have been removed, his voice thickened, his face altered beyond all recognition. This is the man thought by the world of Marathon Man to be dead, a consummate, seemingly indestructible killing professional who has been summoned into service once again by the ultrasecret Division. Entering an unfamiliar, irrevocably changed world after his six-year limbo, he soon learns the terrifying thrust of his mission: There is going to he a world war. America is going to start it. He is only one of three people alive who knows it. And he is the single man designated to stop it.
To accomplish this almost impossible task, he must uncover a doomsday scenario of bioengineering gone amok. He must ally himself with the very man who hates him the most. He must set in motion his ultimate plans for the obliteration of an evil conspiracy, propelling himself and one other man—a man as close to himself as the bond of brothers can make him—toward their final, triumphant reunion. If both can survive...
In this stunning sequel that is even more imaginative and relentlessly gripping than Marathon Man, William Goldman returns to the brand of storytelling he knows best, a deftly rendered world of global intrigue, personal loyalties, and unending surprises.
From Library Journal
In this belated sequel to Marathon Man Goldman jumps several years into the future of the Levy brothers. Thomas is now a history professor at Columbia, and Scylla, the lethal secret agent left for dead in New York's Lincoln Center, has been restored and reactivated as a top-level killer by his shadowy masters in the U.S. government. In the nether world of Washington policymaking science has become a major weapon in a bizarre struggle between hawks and doves, and Scylla's assigned role is to eliminate two scientists whose invention of new creative killing methods may be more dangerous than the problem they set out to solve. The imaginative, if sometimes bizarre, plot winds its way through seemingly unconnected episodes of considerable violence before reaching an ironic conclusion which pulls all the threads together.
A thriller novel. A sequel to the 1972 Marathon Man.
**
From Publishers Weekly
At one point in Goldman's new book, the main character peruses the movie listings and complains about the inadequacy of most sequels. Sadly, he might have added this novel to the list. Resurrecting Scylla, the agent from Marathon Man who is the brother of Babe Levy, hero of that earlier book, Goldman offers an unbelievable story that lacks the plot cohesion and tenacious suspense of its predecessor. Believed dead, Scylla has in fact been hidden away, his face altered, his voice changed, making him the perfect killing machine. His assassin's skills honed to perfection, he is brought back into action by "Division," the mysterious agency for which he works, as part of a plan to permanently alter the balance of world nuclear power. The author spices the plot by introducing a host of super-secret weapons, among them a drug that forces compliance, a liquid that induces suicide, and an almost superhuman killer simply known as The Blonde. Goldman (Magic, Heat, Boys and Girls Together, etc.) is best at depicting nonstop action, and there is plenty to spare here, much of it wildly imaginative. But it is all window dressing, as the book's basic premise fails to hold together. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild dual main selection.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this belated sequel to Marathon Man Goldman jumps several years into the future of the Levy brothers. Thomas is now a history professor at Columbia, and Scylla, the lethal secret agent left for dead in New York's Lincoln Center, has been restored and reactivated as a top-level killer by his shadowy masters in the U.S. government. In the nether world of Washington policymaking science has become a major weapon in a bizarre struggle between hawks and doves, and Scylla's assigned role is to eliminate two scientists whose invention of new creative killing methods may be more dangerous than the problem they set out to solve. The imaginative, if sometimes bizarre, plot winds its way through seemingly unconnected episodes of considerable violence before reaching an ironic conclusion which pulls all the threads together. John North, LRC, Ryerson Polytechncial Inst., Toronto
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.