WHEN THE ENEMY IS TIRED

by Russell Braddon ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1969

This one has irresistible elements of both 1984 and The Manchurian Candidate. In 1975, Colonel Anthony Russell of the Australian Army and his soldiers on Malaya fall into the hands of the Red Chinese who are avid to produce a headline defector. Their computer indicates that Russell can be reached so all psychological forces are marshalled to break him, chiefly by forcing him to write over and over the story of his life from infancy to the age of twenty. From this recall are extracted the experiences the Colonel remembers with distaste, and then he is hypnotized into believing that his subordinates are being executed before his eyes by disgusting methods of farm animal slaughter suggested by his forced memoirs. The suspense derives from the alternating account of the Colonel's wily efforts to resist mental or moral breakdown and his thoroughly normal, solidly upper-middle class boyhood. The technique puts readers on a par with the Red Chinese interrogator and his computer but with the hope that the Colonel is designed to shortcircuit the know-it-all machine.

Pub Date: March 1, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION