It was sometime in late 1992… I had just finished my 10+2 and had a lot of free time with me. In addition, I was bored with Enid Blytons and Hardy Boys (Yes… I was reading them till I was 18!!)… Somebody told me, to try out Sidney Sheldons… With a lot of resistance, I opened the first page of my first Sidney Sheldon… “Doomsday Conspiracy”..
Till date I feel nostalgic about this book. After all.. my reading habit started from there and it has become a passion now!!! Hence, I am willing to forgive all the silly things in the novel… what if the story line was unbelievable… what if there were far to many coincidences, probably more than Tintin Comics, what if the climax was rather an anticlimax…..
The Task
Commander Robert Bellamy has one task in hand. All he needs to do is find out the whereabouts of a few people traveling by a particular bus the previous evening. One must wonder, does it take a super spy to handle this?
Task sounds simple…
But there were some constraints….
The names of the passengers – Not known
The name of the bus company – Not known
Number of passengers – Not known
Route of the bus- Not known
So what was known?
Only clue that Commander Bellamy had with him is the fact that the bus had passed through a particular point at a given time. And the fact that the event had taken place in Switzerland.
To add to this confusion, there was just one more angle… Commander Bellamy has to work on his own, i.e. he can not take any external support.
The Story
As the story unfolds, we get to know the personal life of Commander Bellamy in detail. About his love for Susan, about his time in Vietnam and about his friends and foes.
The first couple of discoveries were not much difficult, but as the trail gets hotter, it gets much more difficult too. Slowly the supposed balloon crash turns to an UFO crash as the witnesses are cleverly eliminated, unknown to Commander Belamy.
One witness leads to another as he travels from Switzerland to London to Germany to Vatican to Chicago to Kiev to New York to Hungary, constantly shadowed by an organization, whose existence is also not known.
The real fun of the book starts when Commander Bellamy discovers that there was an eleventh witness, not known to 9 out of the ten others and the startling revelations that all the ten witnesses have died under mysterious circumstances.
Then the truth strikes….
He has come to know a deadly secret that has claimed ten innocent lives so far and by knowing the secret he also has entered the same league.
Now Commander Bellamy must run for his own life.
Now the hunter has become hunted….
My Review:
The first thing that strikes me about this book is the fast paced story line. It is a page-turner and very difficult to keep it down once you start this.
The characterization has been excellent. Commander Bellamy as a person with phases of toughness and helplessness about him dominates the story line. His continuous devotion for Susan and the devotion of Pierre towards him are also portrayed nicely.
However, the climax is a big let down. When I read it, I was shocked by discovering who the bad guy was…. I mean… graduating from Hardy Boys, I never expected such a kind of climax. But as I read more Sheldons (and other authors), I realized that it was a highly predictable person.
And the way the book ends has been even worse. Such an excellent build up fizzles out in the sorry climax.
Recommendation
The book is best suited for the following 5 conditions…..
Travelling alone on a long trip, need something to keep you occupied.
Graduating from short novels (Hardy Boys, James Hardly Chase etc.) and need an entry point
A strong follower of spy thrillers/ UFO fictions.
A Big fan of Mr. Sheldon and don’t want to miss any of his books
You have nothing else to do.
And you should not read this book just because….
To see how Sidney Sheldon writes (for that read Master of the Game, Rage of Angels etc.)
You are interested in quality literary work.
You are a person with logical mind (then for heaven’s sake, pl never read this)
You heard from someone that this book has god s*x stuff in it. (That’s true, but still….)
And you must never read it merely because you like this review :-) ….ahem :-)