Grasp De Fontini Strijders Produced By Robert Ludlum Depicted In Electronic Format

with the Bourne thrillers The Gemini Contenders is a fast paced novel with a generous mixture of action, suspense and plot twists, The main crux of the story is the quest to unearth sacred religious documents from the contents of an iron box, which if exhumed, could trigger a holy war and have a profound impact on the Second World War.
As the book moves into thes the threat of holy war diminishes and instead its acquisition becomes a personal goal of the two main antagonists who wish to reveal its contents for their own deluded purposes.


Although the politics and events of the second world war are a pretext to what prompts the hiding of the box, they play less and less of a role as the story unfolds.
The story soon becomes inherently focused on the characters own little worlds and their individual quests, Even so there are references to fascism, nazism, MIand the Blitz and very minor connections with the characters lives and senior political figures such as Mussolini and Churchill.
If you like books with real events and historical backgrounds that impact on the lives of the characters then this is not the strongest,

Throughout the book the story is told from the perspective of three generations of the FontiniCristis, a powerful Italian family whose role in the world changes as the story progresses.
Each member of the family embarks on their own personal quest in relation to the contents of the box, Savarone FontiniCristis quest is to hide the box whilst his son Vittorios is to understand what his father had hidden and to try and locate it.
Finally it is Vittorios two twin sons Adrian and Andrew, the Geminis, whose quest it becomes to finally get to the box and reveal its contents, all be it for very different reasons.


The change in direction towards the end of the book kept the story fresh, but it felt a little less realistic, I particularly found the Eye Corps scenario a little unbelievable, However, when the contents of the documents are revealed at the end, I found the revelation quite believable and also unexpected!

A very well written book that was hard to put down.
I would certainly give Robert Ludlums other novels a read,

Have you read The Gemini Contenders sitelinkShare your thoughts on my blog!

On the cover of the paperback a NYT reviewer called this book Ludlum's "most ambitious" novel.
I would call it undisciplined, One has the distinct impression that he got near the end of a pretty good story and then just kept going as if he did no know how to end it.
The second part introduces new characters, reruns of characters in the first part, and ends with a melodramatic finish, Sure it is just a novel, of the beach vacation variety, but it could have been better, not as exhilirating as brown's the da vinci code, but it does present a similar sacrilegious concept

i wonder if this caused a similar stir back in

p: he was blinded a breathless vacuum was being imposed on him, without light, without air.


p: the boy was a black, with a growth of beard on his face,

p: " i couldn't swear to itthat car's totalledbut your friend could have taken a short blast from a shotgun, " Let us go through certain halfdeserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in onenight cheap hotels, . .
To lead you to an overwhelming question,
T. S. Eliot

My memories of this hastily recycled book will always now be indelibly soaked in the redolence of the rainsoaked, mustilymildewed wallpaper of cheap Edinburgh eateries all we could then afford back then, during my first ventures into Scottish life back when I was twentysomething.


The flight from Mirabel was uneventful, but the adjustment would prove unnerving,

Driving from Glasgow was as halcyon as our flight, but arriving in an outoftheway culdesac paupers hotel in central Edinburgh as evening fell marked the downward descent from glossy brochures: into brute reality.


While overseas, we had paid our money now in Scotland we were about to take our chances!

Our spartan, tiny room bode ill for us too.
I was jetlagged, though, and had to get ready to turn in, fast, . .

Escaping from its tight confines onto the second floor landing, I made for a cozylooking reading lounge, to forget my cares in Robert Ludlums sheer suspense.


But the characters all seemed carboncopy clones of each other topic for a graduate thesis: The Archetype of Banality in the Oeuvre of Ludlum.


So it WAS to be a restless night in a cheap hotel, And a ONENIGHT cheap hotel at that, bless my soul, . .

For as I tried to concentrate on the postmodern drugstore thriller in my hand, I heard a creak of heavy treads on the landing.


Then, two minutes later, more leaden footfalls, . . I peered out of the glass French doors of the reading room,

Slightly inebriated middleaged men were following one another grimily into similar spartan sleeping cells for a bit of respite from their weary workaday daily routine.
. .

Oh, do not ask what is it!
That was a venue NOT to visit, . .

If this story was not to your liking, imagine me, sleepless in Scotland!

“Whatsa matter, Fergus Brute Reality too much for you Some guys, as William Blake says, havta make their Heaven in Hells Despite!”

Well, I know but even back then I had my handy tranquillizers at the ready.


Avoiding any further disruptions, I returned to our sleazy cell, brushed my teeth, and popped my pill,

Next thing I knew, it was morning, and my senses were for the first time during that trip assaulted by the acrid smell of timeworn damp wainscotting.


A Scotch mist was penetrating the room,

I shaved while stillabitdreamily getting the feel of Scottish music My Baby Takes the Morning Train remember that showstopper,

Then I ambled down those selfsame creaky stairs to have some brunch one of the perpetual standards on their homecooked menu, I remember cause it sounded odd to my North American ears a slapdash but Scotssounding Mixed Grill, which was fairly decent.


Then, outward and onward I wended my way to the nearby incredible Scottish Portrait Gallery, while my Dad on whose dime we were travelling went about his business.


The weather was clearing up, and things augured well for us, . .

But for the next two nights in that onenight cheap hotel would be spent with dutiful dollops of that best of all insomniacs soporifics

The Gemini Contenders, and many more dangerous to theninnocent me duos

Otherwise, this was to me an eminently forgettable book.
I first read The Gemini Contenders a little under forty years ago and remembered that I enjoyed it very much, I was looking forward to a second read, I'm disappointed to say I was slightly underwhelmed,

Like all off Ludlum's novels, the plot is convoluted, twisting and full of red herrings, It's also a load of nonsense but that's what you expect from the author of the fabulous Bourne Trilogy, The narrative of The Gemini Contenders stretches fromto, In a sense it's a religious thriller about some ancient papers which, if they fell into the wrong hands, would 'blow the world apart, ' It has a welldrawn and sympathetic hero, some awful villains usually in black robesand a glamorous heroine,

The Gemini Contenders starts very well and picks up pace during the war years but then flags, It's perhaps too long and I found myself become irritated towards the end with a drawn out climax in which yet another priest appeared, Nonetheless an entertaining read.

David Lowther. Author of The Blue

Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press, Въпреки че на моменти твърде много ми идваше политиката, мнението ми е, че историята е увлекателна, напрегната и държи читателя в напрежение. Втората част за близнаците беше за мен по интересната, може би, защото там беше кулминацията. Една от книгите, които не ти се иска да оставиш, за да разгадаеш по бързо мистерията и да разбереш каква е развръзката. THE GEMINI CONTENDERS


Another one of Robert Ludlums R, I. P. novels that I first read as a middle schoolaged kid back in the lates that Ive now reread as an adult with the added experience of military and foreign travel experience.
Admittedly the books title was an additional motivational factor to reread in this case, as my wonderful girlfriend happens to be a Gemini,

As in typically the case with a Ludlum novel, “The Gemini Contenders” is full of bloody, gory, violent action, intricate plot twists, and exotic locales.
. . but also the authors annoying tendencies toincorporate multiple foreign language sentences without the common courtesy of translating for his readers benefit, andwoeful technical gaffes with descriptions of firearms.


GAFFES:

A “revolver” with a safety under the barrel

A Beretta is a “revolver,” yet a,Magnum is a “pistol” Imsure that neither the Desert Eagle nor the Coonan,autopistols had yet been invented back in, Anshot.Magnum no less! A custom Smith Modelperhaps Oh wait, those didnt come out til, never mind, . .

Old man Goldonis “shotgun” AKA “lupo” suddenly become a “rifle, ”

Italians using miles and inches instead of the metric system

“Magazineclip pistol, ” You mean a semiautomatic pistol AKA an autopistol, Mr, Ludlum
An order of Greek monks during World War II want to smuggle documents relating to Jesus that have been safeguarded for two thousand years.
They turn to a wealthy family for assistance, Things go wrong and for several generations the family is pursued by various forces, Like the rest of Ludlum's novels the story is fast paced and gripping, .