author: Roderick Thorp
name: Wayne
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1979
rating: 3
read at: 2013/07/27
date added: 2013/07/27
shelves:
review:
'Nothing Lasts Forever' is the novel that is the basis for the movie Die Hard. It's an interesting read because of the earlier time frame it was written in, and also because of the things that remained in the movie and the things that changed.
It's Christmas and Joe Leland is heading from St. Louis to Los Angeles to visit his daughter Stephanie Gennaro. Her firm has just concluded a big deal and the firm is celebrating at the office. Terrorists show up and seize the building and it's up to Joe to stop them.
It's a tight-focused book, and everything that we see happening is what Joe sees. There aren't cutaways to terrorists hiding in stairwells, or the hostages. Also, Leland is not a cop, but works with law enforcement as a security analyst and knows the main terrorist, Hans Gruber, from some profiling that's been done. You also get to peak in Joe's thoughts and see him strategize as he maps the floors of the building he's in and attempt to set traps.
Joe is caught between two worlds. He's a fighter pilot from World War 2 and he finds himself in a new age where the heroes and villains don't seem to be a lot different. It's an interesting social commentary based on the late 1970s. The book has a fairly cynical title and that's for a reason. It's a tightly plotted read, and I enjoyed it.
via Wayne's bookshelf: read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/583788562?utm_medium=api&utm_source=rss
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