Six Days of the Condor ★★★✬☆

 

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Title: Six Days of the Condor
Series: ----------
Authors: James Grady
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 159
Words: 56K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

Ronald Malcolm is a CIA employee who works in a clandestine operations office in Washington, D.C. responsible for analyzing the plots of mystery and spy novels. One day, when he should be in the office, Malcolm slips out a basement entrance for lunch. In his absence a group of armed men gain entrance to the office and kill everyone there. Malcolm returns, realizes he is in grave danger, and telephones a phone number at CIA headquarters he has been given for emergencies.

When he phones in (and remembers to give his code name "Condor"), he is told to meet an agent named Weatherby who will "bring him in" for protection. However, Weatherby is part of a rogue group within the CIA, the same group responsible for the original assassinations. Weatherby tries to kill Malcolm, who manages to escape. On the run, Malcolm uses his wits to elude both the rogue CIA group and the proper CIA authorities, both of which have a vested interest in his capture or death.

Seeking shelter, Malcolm kidnaps a paralegal named Wendy Ross whom he overhears saying she will spend her coming vacation days holed up in her apartment. Knowing no one will notice her absence, Malcolm enlists her aid in finding out more about the forces after him. She is shot and seriously wounded in the process, but survives.

It is then revealed that the rogue group was using the section where Malcolm works to import illegal drugs from Laos. A supervisor stumbled onto a discrepancy in the records exposing this operation, thus necessitating the section's elimination.

Everything works out in the end and the badguys all get theirs and Malcom gets the girl.

My Thoughts:

I have seen the movie, 3 Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford, several times but had never read the book. So when Dix reviewed the movie a couple of months ago and we got talking about the book in the comments it seemed like the moment was right to hunt down a copy for myself and read it.

There is a reason the movie is better known than the book. My first clue was that the introduction by the author was almost 15% of the book. He kept talking and talking and it was more of a mini-autobiography than a simple introduction. It wasn't bad, but it was NOT what I was expecting.

Once we get to the actual story, it was very similar to the movie. One of the days is spent with Ronald being sick with the flu. You can see why that day got axed from the movie. Then there is Ronald's obsession with big breasted women. He's a guy so I completely understand, but I don't particularly need to know that Ronald gets to work on time every day just so he can watch a girl walk to work and comment on her sartorial choices. Plus, the girl he hooks up with to stay under cover is apparently a horny nympho and jumps his bones every chance she gets. Eye roll.

You can tell this was dated and written by an amateur. In one of the chapters Ronald is supposed to meet up with somebody he knows to bring him in. The traitor gets involved and Ronald shoots the traitor in the leg with a 357magnum and the traitor shoots the guy Ronald trusts in a bid to make it look like Ronald is the traitor. Now, he does that with a 22 pistol. And it takes almost until the end of the book for the forensics guys to figure this out. For feth's sake!

The one thing that I did like about this better than the movie was how the good guys win. In the movie the Condor is pretty much told that he's powerless against the Machine and it doesn't matter what he does because he'll just be ignored or ground up. In the book the traitors are caught and killed.

Overall, I'm glad I read this but if someone were to ask me whether they should read the book or watch the movie, I'm going to go for the movie. It is just a better, tighter story.

★★★✬☆