The boys from Brazil

by Ira Levin

Paperback, 1977

Status

Available

Call number

F LEV

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

London, Pan Books Ltd.

Description

Fiction. Thriller. HTML: The classic thriller of Dr. Josef Mengele's nightmarish plot to restore the Third Reich Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project. Barry Koehler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the scheme and informs famed Nazi hunter Yakov Liebermann, but before he can relay the evidence, Koehler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings�??Liebermann, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member melydia

Nazis! Genetic engineering! Mystery! Peril! Death! Did I mention Nazis? The premise is great, a nice little science-fictiony take on the old nature-vs-nurture debate. Perhaps not so timely today as it once was (given that the real people in the book are all dead of old age if nothing else), but

still a good story.

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LibraryThing member john257hopper

A good page turning thriller that reflects the era in which it was written, when the War ended only three decades earlier and some prominent ex-Nazis were still around to be be hunted and caught. The science of Mengele's plan is very implausible in its far-reaching implications, but the tension

overcame this for me. I saw the film some years ago - Gregory Peck was ridiculously miscast, but managed to make a reasonable job of the role of Mengele.

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LibraryThing member fireeyedboy

That's it?

I always expected so much more from this book. 'Thrilling'? not really. 'Vaguely interesting' would be a more appropriate description.

LibraryThing member alexrichman

I picked this up for its ingenious premise, but now regret that I didn't read it before the title entered the pop culture consciousness. The uncertainty over the true nature of Mengele's plan bubbles over brilliantly, but the rest is standard disposable thriller fare.

LibraryThing member MHelm1017

I like to think that the real Josef Mengele read this novel and contemplated his fictional fate.

LibraryThing member nocto

Darren picked this one off his bookshelves for me; and he picked pretty well. I asked for something light and rather thought that it was going to get all too heavy when I got tangled up with Nazis hiding out in South America and planning the deaths of ninety four civil servants for no apparent

reason. It's a really good read though and I'd recommend it myself now. Also, without giving the plot away, it's interesting to read it now as some of the things that are speculated about in the book have actually happened or become a lot more real in the thirtyish years since it was written.

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LibraryThing member Jennifyr

I found a copy of this book at my local Stop & Shop for $1 and picked it up. I had never heard about it before, but after hearing a quick plot from my boyfriend, I decided I had to read it, even if it wasn't the sort of book I usually read. I thought it was going to be depressing, but even though

Levin writes about a heavy topic, he handles it in a way that is entertaining, intriguing, and enjoyable. The science side of it is very interesting, the mystery side of it is engaging, the heroes and villains are very clear, but the characters are well written and not one dimensional. Overall it's a quick, entertaining read - not heavy handed, depressing or preachy - but still giving the reader a lot to think about. It feels more like a thriller or suspense novel than anything else, but not loaded with cheese and fluff. I would definitely recommend it to anyone considering reading it.

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LibraryThing member Bridgey

My first book by the author, and I don’t think it will be my last….

Dr Josef Mengele is alive and kicking in Brazil, he is at the centre of a plot to begin the reintroduction of the 3rd Reich. 94 middle aged men must die on specific dates in order for the plan to come into fruition, but standing

in his way are an aging Nazi hunter and his newly appointed apprentice.

Can they stop Mengele in time?

An interesting concept and well written, at time the plot was given away a little earlier that would have liked but all in all a very good read. Probably not one that I will revisit but one that I will remember.

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LibraryThing member acargile

I really enjoyed this book. Yakov Lieberman is a Jew who famously brought Nazi criminals to trial. The time is the 1970s and some have forgotten, but he is still looking for justice. A young man--Barry-- finds out the Nazis are meeting in a restaurant in Brazil. He is able to get a waitress to put

a cassette player in the room to record what happens. The Nazi organization is planning on killing 92 men from various countries who are civil servants. Barry is able to call Liberman and play part of the cassette but is then tracked down and killed by the Nazis. Dr. Mengele is the person in charge of this operation. As the novel progresses, we discover that all of the men are fathers of adopted boys. Dr. Mengele had birthed them from Hitler's cells. The operation is suspended b/c Lieberman has discovered what is going on. The doctor cannot stand it, so he decides to kill the remaining men and Lieberman. He goes to Pennsylvania where Lieberman has gone to warn the next victim. Mengele gets there first, gets the man to lock up the guard dogs posing as Lieberman, and then kills the man. Lieberman arrives and notices the accent is a little off--figures out it's Mengele. Mengele shoots Lieberman multiple times, but Lieberman is able to open the door to let the dogs out. Now the dogs have Mengele and Lieberman is critically injured. In walks the spitting image of Hitler. He allows the dogs to kill Mengele. Lieberman keeps the secret. Another organization wants to kill the boys. Lieberman says that they would become as bad as the Nazis who killed children. He destroys the list so that no one can find the boys, believe that humanity will win out and a new Hitler will not emerge.

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LibraryThing member JGolomb

This story holds a special place of 'awe' in my memory. I saw the movie when I was a kid, and its' scientific mystery blended with action and history burned into my memory. Ira Levin writes a short, tightly focused drama. His writing is spare and crisp, and he successfully builds the drama

surrounding a 1970's plot of surviving Nazis using science to rebuild an Aryan dream by bringing to life a Fourth Reich.

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LibraryThing member Mr.Philip.Swan

I seem to be on a Levin kick this past week or so, having rea-read ROSEMARY'S BABY and then caught up with his first novel, A KISS BEFORE DYING. Now I'm catching up with his 1976 thriller about some Nazis who just can't let go of that dream of a perfect Aryan race. . .

4/03: Another excellent novel

of suspense by Levin, and not far off the mark about cloning, either - and THAT'S the scary thing!

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LibraryThing member 5hrdrive

Not so farfetched a possibility as it seemed when I first read this twelve years ago. Left me with a much more ominous feeling now.

LibraryThing member JWarren42

The prose hums like a well-tuned machine. Perfectly paced, excellently executed. He doesn't even shy away from the "should we kill boys who only might become Hitler or not?" conversation (as I suspect contemporary authors might). HIGHLY recommended.

LibraryThing member Kaethe

Levin wrote really gripping stories. Such fun to read, even if they are implausible.

LibraryThing member aadyer

An intriguing premise that still has the ability move and thrill
Now. Strangely it seems to have got more plausible with age. Good and a reasonable thriller from that time and place.

LibraryThing member ericlee

Having recently read a new novel about the creation of a Nazi Fourth Reich set in 2012, I wanted to return to this classic thriller.

I noticed two things immediately: first of all, the prospects of evil Nazis unleashing another nightmare in the world was far more plausible in the mid-1970s when so

many of them, including Dr Josef Mengele, were still alive and relatively young. That’s the real horror of books like this one and ‘Marathon Man’ (from the same decade) which were both made into excellent films.

The second thing I noticed is what a great story-teller Ira Levin was. The book is gripping from the first page to the last.

The book was also far ahead of its time in its discussion of the possibility of cloning. What Mengele does in this book has still not been achieved (as far as I know) with humans. But it will happen. Let us just hope that the people cloned are nothing like these boys from Brazil.

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LibraryThing member burritapal

Never in a million years would I have guessed who "The Boys from Brazil" were. But did you ever wonder how blond-haired people with German names got to South America? This book was a page-turner that I read in one sitting (laying).

LibraryThing member Lukerik

Nicely plotted, well written science fiction thriller with a good mystery. I actually remembered the big secret from when I last read this thirty years ago, so it must have made quite an impression. Thirty years ago would have been about the right time for the implications of the novel to be coming

to fruition. A little dated now, but still very enjoyable.

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LibraryThing member A.Godhelm

Great pageturner. Unfortunately it's hard to get a "virgin" experience that does justice to the way Levin sets up and writes about the ultimate reveal of the plot since any reader now has most likely picked up on the main outline of the plot through cultural osmosis. Levin writes almost like he's

setting up the screenplay with the way he cuts between scenes and dialogue.

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LibraryThing member tuckerresearch

DISCLAIMER - Don't read this if you haven't read the book.

I read this book for the first time when I was in middle school on the mid-1990s, about the time that cloning went from science fiction to science fact. The idea is deliciously evil, all the more so because it is all very possible. Mengele

was never brought to justice, there was a group of underground Nazis still active in the 1970s, and cloning could be (and probably will be) used for ill. The writing is average as popular fiction of the 1970s goes (nothing new or particularly poetical), but, like The Exorcist, the plot is carried forward by the drama. It is so believable and you want the good guys to win. (Do novels have good guys anymore? And if so, do they ever win?) The idea that Mengele and latter-day Nazis have cloned Hitler and are trying to engineer a similar home life (nature and nurture) is ingenious, and scary. Yakov Liebermann is an underdog hero because he's got everything stacked against him. A good book. I heartily recommend it. Then watch the movie with Olivier and Peck. Then hope they don't screw up the 2009 remake.

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LibraryThing member Zare

I read this book in a single day.

There are novels that are tightly linked to the time when they were published. So when read in modern times and outside the targeted-era they seem out-of-place, maybe even demode.

And then there are books that are timeless. And this book is timeless.

Sure you may say

that here main antagonists are [again] Nazi's, timeless evildoers that are ready to kill anyone and everyone in order to achieve their goal. What is it that makes this book different from Ludlum's works i.e.

I will say subject and characters.

Main subject is something that in the 1970's when novel was published might be in domain of the SF but today is in domain of very possible (if not already perfected) - cloning a person. But not just cloning a person to have the same genetic structure as a person donating the genetic materiel. Story goes one step more to show that in order to get a perfect (or near perfect) copy of somebody then new organism (I truly do not know how to call it - clone?) needs to be placed under the same stressors and external pressures because while genetic structure defines us great deal - our life experiences are what makes the true difference. And again it does not guarantee that end result will be 100% copy but chances grow.

When notorious dr Mengele pops up author gives us the person that most definitely had enough theoretical and [oh horrors] practical knowledge when it comes to genetics and gene manipulation.

So as you can see all the ingredients are in and story sounds very believable. Characters of Mengele and Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman are just gorgeous. One thinking about himself as a supreme being with holy task at hand and the other getting more and more ignored by others as years pass by [because world is tired of hunting the war criminals]. Even the para-military Jewish organization Ezra contacts for help seems so hungry-for-blood to Ezra that he decides to prevent them from exterminating all the Mengele's subjects. Because as Ezra says if we act as them [Nazis] then are we any better than them? Standard dilemma but coming from the concentration camp survivor after a discussion with heated youth seeking revenge and only revenge .... it has a different feeling.

And ending. It leaves you wandering. Indeed.

Excellent book, highly recommended to all lovers of good thriller.

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