Marathon Man: A Novel

William Goldman

Jan 2013 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

A Nazi conspiracy in the heart of modern-day Manhattan—the blockbuster New York Times bestseller that became the classic film thriller.

At Columbia University, Thomas “Babe” Levy, a postgrad history student and aspiring marathon runner, is working to clear his late father’s name after the scandal of his suicide, triggered by the McCarthy hearings and accusations of Communist affiliations.
 
In Paraguay, Dr. Christian Szell, former Nazi dentist and protégé of Josef Mengele, has been in exile for decades. Infamous as the “White Angel of Auschwitz,” he’s leaving his South American sanctuary to smuggle a fortune in gems out of New York City.
 
Meanwhile, in London’s Kensington Gardens, an international assassin known only as Scylla has completed a hit. A man with too many secrets and twice as many enemies, Scylla has become a target himself, with only one place left to turn.
 
Then, when Babe’s revered older brother, Doc, pays him a fateful and unexpected visit, it sets in motion a chain of events plunging Babe into a paranoid nightmare of family betrayal, international conspiracy, and the dark crimes of history. Now, the marathon man is running for his life, and closer to answering a single cryptic and terrifying question: “Is it safe?”
 
William Goldman’s Marathon Man was adapted by the author for the award-winning 1976 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Upon its publication, the Washington Post called it “one of the best novels of the year,” and it remains a powerful, horrifying read. In the words of #1 New York Times–bestselling author Harlan Coben: “I found myself racing through it. You could have put a gun to my head, and I wouldn’t have been able to put [Marathon Man] down.”
 This ebook features a biography of William Goldman.

Ratings and reviews

Everyone has a speciality. The spy assasin specializes in killing people with his bare hands. The hero is a marathon runner, and shows how this more mundane speciality can be used to beat the bad guys too. The reveal regarding the retationship between the two worlds reminds me of another Golman masterpiece, Magic, and how we can have a friend who seems mundane but is in fact out of this world. In that respect I think both books are deep or spiritual. I wonder what Golman novel I should read next. I will be reading another.

Marathon man

About the author

William Goldman (1931–2018) was an Academy Award–winning author of screenplays, plays, memoirs, and novels. Born near Chicago, he earned his bachelor of arts degree at Oberlin College, where he began writing fiction, followed by a master of arts degree at Columbia University. His first novel, The Temple of Gold (1957), was followed by the script for the Broadway army comedy Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole (1961). He began writing for Hollywood soon after, and would script some of the finest films of the era, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976), for which he won two Academy Awards.
Goldman continued writing novels, several of which he then adapted as screenplays, including the hit movies Marathon Man (1976), Magic (1978), and The Princess Bride (1987). He also wrote acclaimed essays, and several memoirs of his career in Hollywood.