The Climate of Hell

by Herbert Lieberman

Ancien médecin du Reich, Gregor Grigori – alias l’Ange de la mort d’Auschwitz – s’est réfugié au Paraguay. Alors que tout le monde le croit mort, Asher, un espion juif, retrouve sa trace. Ce « faucon » israélien, animé par un brutal instinct de vengeance, se lance dans une longue traque au cœur de la forêt amazonienne, où l’étrange docteur a établi sa demeure – ainsi qu’une inquiétante clinique… Né à New Rochelle, Herbert Lieberman est le maître incontesté du thriller new-yorkais. Il est l’auteur Nécropolis (Grand Prix de littérature policière 1978) et de La Nuit du solstice , disponibles en Points. « Un roman haletant et terriblement actuel. » Elle Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Serge Grunberg

Genres: Thriller, Horror, Fiction

318 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Herbert Liberman received his AB from City College of New York and his AM from Columbia University. He is a former managing editor of the Reader's Digest Book Club.

The author of Crawlspace, City of the Dead, The Climate of Hell, and several other acclaimed novels, Herbert Lieberman is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a winner of France’s coveted Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for City of the Dead. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife. He and his wife Judith have one daughter and twin granddaughters.

Reviews

[Checkman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. Yes I said (wrote/typed) boring. Written in the late seventies when old Nazis in South America was a red-hot genre I had high expectations for this book. After all I have reviewed Marathon Man and The Boys From Brazil and enjoyed both of those books - not to mention the movies. We now know things were a little different than were believed some thirty-five years ago, but that doesn't matter. Sometimes fiction is funner than reality.

So I had high expectations for The Climate of Hell. It started off strong, but quickly slide down into a drawn out boring morality tale. Nobody is a good guy in this novel and that hurts the book. While I understand what the author was saying about revenge being destructive and "violence begets violence" it just isn't a very engrossing book. In other words........it's boring.

I simply can't recommend this book. Avoid it.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Rouge Mossad agent goes to Paraguay with the purpose of assassinating a Dr. Grigori - a Josef Mengele analogue. There is a lot of back and forth, near misses, and complications which keep hunter from prey. And everything ends in a twist that I did not see coming, thought whether it's satisfying is open to debate. The most interesting parts focus on Dr. Grigori, his life in Paraguay, his unrepentant love of the Nazi beliefs, his whining about being a victim. If ever there was a character who deserved to die, then it was him. We see the corruption of the country which harbored the Nazis, the shifting international political climate which made it difficult for escaped Nazis to be captured, and the abject poverty of the countryside which was taken advantage of by escaped monsters. There are some bizarre scenes in the book, the weirdest one being the Nazi beauty pageant, and some might not be interested in the end. I know several people who have abandoned this book, but I stuck with it to the end and am happy I did. Some claim its boring and I have to disagree, but it does take its time. So if you read this book be prepared for that.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

"They say I'm dead. - Shot in a cafe in Asuncion. Lured into Brasil and mown down by an Israeli assassin team. dredged out of the Iguacu Falls, my throat slashed." : Words spoken by the Death Angel of Auschwitz - Dr.Grigori - who lives and thrives in the corrupt, crumbling dictatorship of Paraguay where he continues his murderous, inhuman experiments. One man still pursues Grigori, though. A man of cold persistence, a man of violence...

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭

[Bruce Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most enjoyable thing about this book is the many hilarious verbal clangers inside - including someone decapitating a fish's head! I read this maybe 30 years ago and it still makes me laugh