Story: back during the world war II when Hitler was in full steam, there was another potential crisis that was identified - a set of manuscripts that were apparently written during the years of Christ and threatened to change the thoughts and belief that people had grown comfortable with over the years - about there being a Christ and all. These documents were being protected by a group of people and they realized that with Hitler’s rampage, they could be compromised. So they decide to ship these to a safe location and identify a powerful man with an impeccable reputation for his honor and word - Fontini Christi. He arranges for the documetns to be buried some safe place and intends telling his eldest son, vittorio, about the same. Twist time - there is suddenly an attack on the Campo di Cristi and the entire family is massacred. Vittorio is saved since he was out sleeping with someone elses wife.
He watches the murder and then to his surprise, is helped by Brit agents in escaping to London. He then realizes about the documents that were shipped on the ’’train to salonika’’. He is clueless about this and in turn disappoints the Brits who think he knows all and the documents can be a useful thing in the war. The rest of the book is about Vittorio being recruited by the Brits to form an underground clandestine group of people who will excel in mismanagement and somehow get enrolled into the ranks of those managing industry taken over by the Germans. Thereon, how he is forced to move back into the ’’train to Salonika’’ pursuit due to others involved and so on.
This Ludlum book is a good read but not ’un-put-downable’ like the Bourne Identity. Ludlum as usual has taken great pains to describe his characters and the surrounding environ. Also, I believe his books are full of moving from one place to another and I mean countries!
There is a lot of fascination to somehow link his story to Vietnam and Saigon (as I remember, all his books have some link). To sum up, another interesting piece of work by Ludlum and while it is not a ’’must read’’, it surely isn’t too bad either. I was disappointed that the name of the book was Gemini Contenders and would have appreciated another name that would be more indicative:)