Brothers - Hardcover

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.

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.