Suspense classic

Words WORTH

The Boys from Brazil is a fine introduction to novelist Ira Levin's talent for getting under a reader's skin, and for characterisation.

American novelist and playwright Ira Levin died two weeks ago, aged 78, but media coverage was thinly spread; looking at reports, you'd think Levin was a significant figure only for the films adapted from his suspense novels (notably Roman Polanski's version of Rosemary's Baby. But this is far from the case. Though not a prolific writer by any standard, much less the standards of genre fiction (he published seven books between 1953 and 1997), Levin was a master not just at thinking up highly suspenseful plots but also at the art of maintaining suspense over the course of a book. His writing style, functional though it is, conceals a delicate craftsmanship, especially in the way he accumulates little details and uses them to create menace. This means that even though most of his books contains a frisson-generating twist (or in some cases, a few minor twists and one major surprise), it's possible to reread them even after their secrets have been digested.

The opening pages of The Boys from Brazil (1976), one of his most satisfying novels, can try the patience of a reader who expects a thriller to supply facile thrills right from the first page. The chapter records a series of quotidian details. Three men are at a Japanese restaurant in Sao Paulo, where a room has been reserved for a party. The guests arrive, the men exchange greetings, allude to old times. Food is served; they flirt with waitresses, banter. All these details are presented dispassionately, but we can sense the tension in the air, that this is leading up to something bigger.

Soon enough, we learn that this is a meeting of former Nazis presided over by Josef Mengele (who was a real-life physician, known as the Angel of Death for his medical experiments in concentration camps). The agenda for the meeting is that 94 men "" all civil servants, all 65 years old "" in various parts of the world have to be killed on specified dates in the next two years. These killings, Mengele says, without providing any further explanation, will fulfill a plan to "restore the supremacy of the Aryan race".

Levin's talent, here as elsewhere, lies in slowly bringing together the many elements of a scene before revealing their full implications and pulling the carpet out from beneath the reader's feet. Another good example of this occurs later in the book, when Yakov Liebermann, an ageing Jew who has dedicated his life to tracing fugitive Nazis, discovers Mengele's true motives. Levin doesn't immediately tell us about Liebermann's epiphany: instead he describes his movements "" staring silently at his food, excusing himself from the dining table, going into the next room "" from the perspective of his dining companions. One of them looks through a doorway, sees Liebermann "standing in profile, head bent to an open book, rocking slightly", and wonders if this is a case of a "Jew at prayer". This is rich imagery, for it isn't a prayer-book Liebermann is looking into, it's something else (sorry, no spoilers), and the reason he's swaying is because he is in shock.

At the heart of The Boys from Brazil is a premise out of science-fiction, and this, along with the demands of the thriller genre, means the reader is required to suspend disbelief. But Liebermann is a completely believable protagonist, one we can whole-heartedly engage with (even without the knowledge that he's based on the real-life Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal). This is a persistent, driven old man, aware he is running out of time and resources. He has strong mood swings: he's saddened by how little the Holocaust means to modern young people, struggles to conceal his shock when a girl unthinkingly refers to Mengele's work at Auschwitz as "research", but also encouraged by the support he receives from unexpected quarters; and, at the end of the novel, he's still optimistic enough about human nature to make a brave decision. He's a character we genuinely care about, and this, along with Levin's eye for detail "" for a stray gesture that can acquire retrospective significance "" gives The Boys from Brazil a staying power that most other suspense novels lack.

Other recommended titles: A Kiss Before Dying, The Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby.