Arthur Maling (1923–2013)
Autore di The Rheingold Route
Sull'Autore
Fonte dell'immagine: Lecturalia
Opere di Arthur Maling
Juego diabólico 1 copia
Opere correlate
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Maling, Arthur
- Nome legale
- Maling, Arthur Gordon
- Data di nascita
- 1923
- Data di morte
- 2013-10-24
- Sesso
- male
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Istruzione
- Francis W. Parker School
Harvard University (B.A.) - Attività lavorative
- military
reporter
executive manager
writer
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Edgar Award (1)
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 22
- Opere correlate
- 7
- Utenti
- 120
- Popolarità
- #165,356
- Voto
- 3.1
- Recensioni
- 2
- ISBN
- 34
- Lingue
- 3
fter reading the first couple of chapters, I put the book aside. It may have been simply "where my head was at," but I wasn't very interested in a story that seemed to be all about criminals and their ways of double-crossing each other.
But, since I'd committed to reading all the Edgar winners in this category, I went back to it. As the book goes on, the protagonist, John Cochran, a currency smuggler, is shown to be a much more sympathetic character than I'd found him at first. His opponents display their character flaws, which will trip them up in the end.
One thing I especially enjoyed about this book was the way Maling used changing points-of-view to build suspense and move the story along. This is not a new technique and in fact was used by both Forsyth and Follett in their own Edgar winners, which I read recently. In The Rheingold Route we don't get a law enforcement viewpoint, but we do get a couple of chapters told from the POV of an innocent bystander who is caught up in the actions of the villainous O'Rourke. I thought Maling did a particularly nice job with the various feelings this character experienced during the course of his "adventure."
I also appreciated how Maling essentially let the reader figure out what was going on (why the person who had hired Cochran also hired his pursuer) without explaining every detail. Eventually the protagonist has a conjecture about the motive, but the important thing is the chase.
Cochran (not his real name) is a character with a complicated past that has brought him from being a U.S. Treasury agent to a life as a currency smuggler with a false passport. He's a man who has made bad choices for good reasons, and who has known great sorrow as a consequence. At the end of the book, all is not neatly tied up with a fancy ribbon, but Cochran can se possibilities for a better future.
For an international thriller that focuses, not on the fate of nations, but simply on money and the ways it is used, misused, and moved around, I don't think you can do better than The Rheingold Route.… (altro)