Rating: 
Summary: gripping classic mystery thriller
Review: A classic mystery suspense set in 1960s Germany. A journalist gets involved in hunting down a Nazi war criminal (the Butcher of Riga) who is being aided by a shadow organization called The Odessa (name an acronym, not geographical). With a plot that links to arab terrorists, Israel, and ex-SS men, it's thrilling and tightly crafted. Fantastic, and apparently based on much fact in the generals.
Rating:
Summary: gripping classic mystery thriller
Review: A classic mystery suspense set in 1960s Germany. A journalist gets involved in hunting down a Nazi war criminal (the Butcher of Riga) who is being aided by a shadow organization called The Odessa (name an acronym, not geographical). With a plot that links to arab terrorists, Israel, and ex-SS men, it's thrilling and tightly crafted. Fantastic, and apparently based on much fact in the generals.
Rating:
Summary: Forsyth's best book by far!!!!!!
Review: After reading "The Day of the Jackal", I thought that there couldn't be a better suspense thriller than this, but I still hadn't read "The Odessa File". Its set in the early 1960's, where a young freelance German journalist comes across the personal diary of an old German Jew who's committed suicide. Reading the diary through the night, the journalist, Peter Miller finds out that the Jew was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp at Riga, Latvia during World War II. As he reads on, he's shocked by the graphic description by the Jew of the atrocities committed on the camp inmates by the camp commandant, Eduard Roschmann. Millers vows to track down Roschmann and bring him to justice. But while doing so, he comes across a super-secret organization known as Odessa, which protects Nazi ex-SS members from being captured and brought to justice. When Miller starts getting too close to the Odessa, his life is in grave danger. But he decides that it will end with him bringing Roschmann to justice for his crimes, or with his death."The Odessa File", as with all other Forsyth books, has a super-shocking twist in the end, where we get to know the real motive behind Miller wanting to find Roschmann. In the process, Forsyth manages to include The Beatles' short stint in Hamburg, the background of the brief Arab-Israeli war and last but not the least, Kennedy's assasination. As usual, Forsyth's factual knowledge is accurate to the point, and his research is deep and minute. "The Odessa File" is undoubtedly Frederick Forsyth at his very best.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not great
Review: I had to read this book for school and enjoyed it. i thought the writing was crisp and easy and that the plot kept you reading. Some parts were a bit unrealistic but it is fiction. There is a lot of information about what happened to the former dreaded SS members after world war II which is fascinating and the chapter about the holocaust is very sad. You can't see the twist coming, and I think the author cheated a litle by not divulging some needed information, but it is an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: Jawohl! A nail bitting thriller from the master
Review: I have something to confess. This is my first Frederick Forsyth novel. For years, my father had had almost all his books in his private collection, but I never thought of touching them, thinking to myself, "Just another pulp writer..." Oh, was I wrong!
Forsyth delved extensively into the Nazi mythos and came up with a brilliant thriller that could almost pass off as non-fiction. The whole book chronicles the long and wild chase across the whole of Germany for a Nazi war criminal.
The chase is intertwined with a convulated plot involving biological weapons, the Mossad, the Waffen-SS and of course, the shadowy Odessa. Thoroughly researched and the explanations in each background are vivid and clear.
Nevertheless, if you are in a mood for an exciting thrill ride from start to finish, this is the book for you. Forsyth fans were equally thrilled when this book was released. You might also want to check out the movie version of the novel, starring Jon Voight.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous read!
Review: I'd read Day of the Jackel and Dogs of War years ago, but somehow missed this one. What a great read. Too few authors today take the time and have the talent to write an engaging work like this. I was amused by a later reviewer who considered Frederick Forsyth an unknown author. Can you imagine that? Too much TV watching must be to blame, but better late than never!
Rating:
Summary: Skip The Last Half
Review: The author's description of Nazi attrocities is outstanding!!!!
It should be required reading for every class in Holocaust Literature. The book also revealed a great deal of information about the Jewish ghetto in Riga, Latvia that could almost be a book in itself.
However, halfway through the book I became very disappointed. The plot degenerated into a cheap thriller. Such a cleverly researched book should never have been coupled with such a poorly written plot.
The horrors of The Riga Ghetto recently made news because of an investigation by The Latvian Holocaust Commission. Unfortunatly, even sixty years after the horrors of The Riga Ghetto, The Government of Latvia couldn't overcome it's antisemitism and Abraham Foxman of The World Jewish Congress resigned from the commission.
Rating:
Summary: A Reckoning For A Butcher
Review: The first two chapters of "The Odessa File" are as brilliant as spy fiction has ever gotten; after that, it's just very, very good.
The opening chapter sets into motion a world of underground Nazis and underworld reporters against the compelling backdrop of the assassination of President Kennedy; Forsyth even finds a way of getting the Beatles involved.
The second chapter, a recounting of the diary of a former concentration camp inmate, offers some of the most stunning testimony of man's inhumanity to man. Yet the dead man, Salomon Tauber, still can write: "With the passing of the years I have learned again to love; to love the rocks and trees, the sky above and the river flowing past the city, the stray dogs and cats, the weeds growing between the cobblestones, and the children who run away from me in the street because I am so ugly."
From there, the novel may slide a bit, but how can it be otherwise? A reporter who reads the journal, Peter Miller, takes it upon himself to find the man behind Tauber's tortures, former SS officer Eduard Roschmann A.K.A. "The Butcher of Riga," and bring him to justice. Yes, people are right when they say "Day Of The Jackal" worked better as a story from front-to-back. Maybe the book could have done more with Miller's plan to infiltrate the Nazi underworld, the "ODESSA" of the novel's title, an idea developed more in the 1974 film adaptation starring Jon Voight. There are a couple of contrivances, not as egregious as are found in some other Forsyth books I can mention, but they are there.
It's still a brilliant story, delivered with a minimum of sentiment and a feeling of lived-in journalistic accuracy. Most of all, it's exciting from chapter-to-chapter, a brisk gallop of a narrative. The final confrontation between Miller and Roschmann is justly famous and well-known; I suspect George Lucas was taking notes.
I've read the book three times now since 1981, and while it's a little less than I remember, it's still tops in its genre in so many ways. People who think spy fiction is all about James Bond and Tom Clancy owe it to themselves to read "Odessa File;" they will be edified, or at the very least, highly entertained.
Rating:
Summary: Kameraderie
Review: THE ODESSA FILE is one of Frederick Forsyth's classics. Cleverly written, meticulously researched, and absolutely readable, THE ODESSA FILE recounts the story of Peter Miller, a young German crime reporter who decides to infiltrate the secret Nazi support network in the early 1960s in order to discover the whereabouts of Captain Eduard Roschmann, "The Butcher of Riga," who sent some 80,000 people to their deaths in the Riga Ghetto.While Miller's outrage at the twisting of Germany by the Nazis is real and intense, his motivations are unclear...until the O. Henry ending. This is fine historical fiction, melding historical figures (like Roschmann)and fictional characters (like Miller) together seamlessly.THE ODESSA FILE is an intense thriller, and rates as one of the finest and most memorable works of its genre anytime and anywhere.
Rating: 
Summary: solid Forsyth material
Review: This is a solid contribution by Frederick Forsyth, one of the best espionage/thriller writers around. Odessa is a secret organization dedicated to furthering the interests of the Nazi regime in the post-World War II era, and the book is about one German's encounters with that group. Both how that German becomes drawn into pursuing Odessa and the revelation of his motivation for doing so make this book an excellent thriller. It is not quite on par with The Day of the Jackal, but it does come awfully close.
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