- Marathon Man
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For the film, see Marathon Man (film).For the tennis player, see Aaron Krickstein.
Marathon Man Author(s) William Goldman Country United States Language English Genre(s) Conspiracy thriller novel Publisher Delacorte Press Publication date 1974 Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) Pages 309 pp ISBN 0-440-05327-7 OCLC Number 940709 Dewey Decimal 813/.5/4 LC Classification PZ4.G635 Mar PS3557.O384 Followed by Brothers Marathon Man is a 1974 conspiracy thriller novel by William Goldman. In 1976 it was made into a film of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, and Roy Scheider and directed by John Schlesinger.
Plot synopsis
The former Nazi SS dentist at Auschwitz, Dr. Christian Szell (inspired by Josef Mengele, the last doctor in charge of Auschwitz II), now residing in Paraguay, must smuggle many diamonds out of the United States after the accidental death of his brother in New York City. This involves a secret intelligence agency named "The Division".
Meanwhile, at Columbia University, Thomas "Babe" Levy is a graduate student in history and an aspiring marathon runner. He is haunted by his father's suicide, provoked by the activities of Senator McCarthy decades earlier, when he and his elder brother were boys. Unbeknownst to Babe, his brother works in Division.
Szell tortures Babe by drilling into his teeth, without anesthetic, and repeatedly asks the question, "Is it safe?" Babe does not know what the question means, nor the interrogator's identity. In the course of torturing him, Szell offers him the analgesic clove oil as inducement to cooperate.
The novels of William Goldman The Temple of Gold (1957) • Your Turn to Curtsy, My Turn to Bow (1958) • Soldier in the Rain (1960) • Boys and Girls Together (1964) • No Way to Treat a Lady (1964) • The Thing of It Is... (1967) • Father's Day (1971) • The Princess Bride (1973) • Marathon Man (1974) • Magic (1976) • Tinsel (1979) • Control (1982) • The Silent Gondoliers (1983) • The Color of Light (1984) • Heat (1985) • Brothers (1986)Categories:- 1974 novels
- American thriller novels
- Novels by William Goldman
- American novels adapted into films
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