CLOSING CEREMONIES

by Harold King ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 1979

According to King (author of two over-busy thrillers, Four Days and The Taskmaster), Eduard Reichmann won the first German gold medal (for discus) in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, became the Fuhrer's chosen Aryan, and after the war escaped war-crimes prosecution by flight to the mountains of Paraguay--where he has built a secret underground mausoleum modeled after the Berlin Reich Chancellery for housing the ashes of Hitler and his chiefs. When Abe and Aaron Miller, a pair of American brothers, are hired to destroy the mausoleum and steal the Hitler urn (a millionaire wants to turn it over to Israel), they get the urn but Abe is killed by Reichmann. So now Aaron sets out to kill Reichmann for revenge, while Mengele and other rich Nazi bigwigs give Reichmann the mission of recovering the urn. Reichmann sends a message to Israel: he is going to assassinate an unnamed world figure on the final day of the Montreal Olympics unless the ashes are returned to him. Then: enter the PLO, who steal the urn for their own purposes. Yes, King is as over-busy as ever, with a cat's-cradle of international forces descending on the Olympics as Reichmann, garbed as an athlete, marches into the great arena carrying a discus bomb of enormous power. . . . Poor dialogue, contrived plotting--an also-ran among the never-ending spew of Hitlerian melodramas.

Pub Date: Sept. 7, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION