The Osterman Weekend - Robert Ludlum

Robert Ludlum is probably best known for writing the novels which the Bourne film series were based on. He did, however write many other novels in his life. About 18 months ago I got his full set of novels in a special deal from my book club and so I, now having read all my other books I had, started to work my way through these. This is the second book written/published by Ludlum and it was a good example of things to come.

The Osterman weekend is fairly short and so would be good for a quick holiday read or to take with you if travelling for a period of time on public transport etc. Whilst the writing style is of a good standard and is not heavy going I did find it perhaps a little simplistic at times and as if the author only had half his mind on the task of writing the novel. Whilst the main plot does work well and the plot is built up as the story goes on it is hardly what I would call suspense building and at times parts of the story are very predictable.

The chapters are fairly short and so there are plenty of places where you can put the book down to do something else. The book is also split into three ‘parts’ which go from the weekend before the main plot comes to it’s climax two the big ‘Osterman weekend’ This in a way does help break the story up and keeps the reader focused but I do ask myself ‘was it really necessary’

Brief Main Plot:

John Tanner a news and documentary ‘editor’ has been requested to attend a meeting about the most recent documentary his station put out. Some people high up in exalted positions are not happy about it. However, when he gets there the meeting is not what he expected…..

Firstly it is with someone else, someone he has never met before…..

Second just why is this stranger so interested in him and more so his friends……

Third why is he being asked to risk his life and those of his family for someone he has never met before….

Fourth just who or what is ‘omega’

What I thought of it:

Well this isn’t the best novel I have ever read but that is not to say it is badly written, it isn’t. The plot does work and there are a few major twists within it. Some I have to say are obvious some do tend to jump out at you shrieking ‘surprise’. The story focuses on just the main plot and very little else is within the pages.

The lack of any real major sub plot is also in a way good as it does not distract the reader from what is going on in the main story but this has left little in the book of building a character background for the majority of the characters in the novel. In this book I feel that character description is particularly poor and only the main two or three characters are really given any form of background or information. Apart from that we are only told that say ‘X’ is the wife of ‘Y’ or ‘A’ was at school with ‘B’.

For me there are far too many minor characters which may be mentioned only once every 70 or so pages, some only mentioned once then never spoken of again. This does make me wonder just how necessary these ‘extras’ are. Perhaps some could have been lost altogether whilst others could just as easily have been amalgamated into a smaller number to give the character more substance. At times I did find myself having to go back through the pages of the book as I was thinking ‘who is s/he again?’ This is something that does irritate me when reading and with better character development it would have not been a problem.

Ludlum does, however, do a good job in his description of the climax of the main plot and the few hours leading up to this. Although this only makes up about 30-40 pages (depending on the edition you have) at the end of the book it is here where the book becomes unputdownable. Ludlum does do a good job at building the suspense in these last few pages, but there is precious little of this in the rest of the novel. It is like his writing style changes towards the end in a way it is as if he is saying ‘you thought the end would be dull, didn’t you’. There is at times a bit too much coincidence within the book some of this does lead you to think along a different line to what is really going on but once or twice it so obvious that this is what the author was trying to do that it is easy to dismiss it.

For me perhaps the most disturbing part of the story is the feeling that ‘this could really happen’ and for all we know it may have done. The dark reality of the end of the book is perhaps more linked to the cold war era than it would be today but with recent events reported in the media it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that it could still happen today. This is really as the book was first published in 1972 and so some parts are perhaps slightly out of date and there has been a film based on this book.

Summary:

In general this was a worthwhile read and I will be reading more of his novels as time goes on. His character descriptions were a little off but this was only his first novel and so this area of his writing may have improved as he wrote more. The plot holds together well and whilst sub plots are few if any in number this does help to focus the reader on the main theme of the novel. In general it is worth reading and makes a good holiday read as it is firstly fairly short and also not heavy going.