 |
The Casanova Embrace
Published Book Reviews
See
complete details about The Casanova
Embrace including immediate purchase options.
A political sex scandal of massive proportions!
|
Quotes
"Diverting,
well-written and sexy."
- Houston Chronicle
"A
good one, with a tight plot and excellent characterizations put
together."
- Calgary Herald
"Lively
and interesting, Adler mixes sex and action in his books, and he does it with
skill and taste."
- Times News, Erie, PA
"A
novel full of intrigue and passion. It is an absorbing and dramatic
story."
- Pittsburgh Press
"A
fast-moving book of political and romantic intrigues… the characters are
diverse and interesting."
- Chattanooga News Free Press
Houston
Chronicle
Eduardo
is a Latin lover with a vengeance, the latter directed against the Chilean
government. He's been exiled and is determined to overthrow the post-Allende
politicos and return home. His tools of destruction are his women. This book
kept reminding me of Sidney Shelton's The Other Side of Midnight, except the
protagonist is male. His sex technique apparently is irresistible and a great
deal is made of what the author sometimes describes euphemistically as
Eduard's manhood. Les femmes spend a lot of paragraphs kneeling like
priestesses at a pagan alter and doing homage. Meanwhile our hero (?) is
concentrating on his long-range goal, as was the female protagonist in
Shelton's novel. The gals are ready to die for him but he has other tasks in
mind, most of them illegal. This is hardly a book of mystery and suspense in
the accepted meaning of the words but it's diverting, well written and sexy.
Chattanooga
Times Free Press
by Linda McArthur
Political
Intrigue in Chile
At first,
the death of Eduardo Allesandra Palmero was thought to be the result of his
political intrigues and his constant guerrilla war against the government of
his native Chile.
All that
was definitely known was that his death was caused by a bomb which exploded as
he drove past the Chilean Embassy in Washington, D.C. The CIA and the FBI both
began intensive and competitive investigations.
The CIA's
man, Alfred Dobbs, had had Palmero under surveillance for a long while; and as
he waited for the results of the laboratory analyses from the scene of the
explosion, he took the Palmero file and began to search for clues to the
identity of the murderer.
Palmero
had rejected the life of wealth and prestige into which he had been born and
had joined with the revolutionaries to aid the impoverished people of his
country.
This
involvement caused an estrangement between him and his family and eventually
led to his exile. As an exile he seemed to enjoy the intrigue, the plots and
the counter-plots.
He also
enjoyed the women who were attracted by his looks and his intense dedication
to a cause. These included an ambassador's wife who was willing to forsake her
husband and children for him, a wealthy widow who offered him $3 million
dollars to stay with her, and a veteran of the campus conflicts of the sixties
who was eager to further his cause with violence if it became necessary. And
always there were Palmero's intrigues.
As Dobbs
sifted through the information concerning Palmero, he began to wonder if the
murdered was actually a member of the Chilean junta or if it could possibly be
one of Palmero's mistresses.
Mr. Adler
has written a fast-moving book of political and romantic intrigues. Even
though they are few, the characters are diverse and interesting.
The
pieces of the plot fit together neatly and resemble a mosaic which needs many
small pieces before the picture becomes evident.
 |
Chicago
Tribune
Even
though a man at the CIA ponders the reasons for the murder of Eduardo Palmero,
a Chilean political exile in Washington, this is not really an espionage
thriller, nor, one supposes, was it quite meant to be, although some of the
thriller's trappings are employed in passing. Rather, it is a detailed
examination of the uses of sexual power, as seen from the point of view of a
Latin Casanova's willing victims - the wife of a French diplomat, a wealthy
widow, and a former revolutionary-turned-waitress. Adler's story of explicit
sexual obsession is dragged out too long and spun too thin, but he is entirely
convincing in the psychological presentation of Casanova and the three women.
Calgary
Herald
Thriller
with a Strange Twist
If Warren
Adler's new book were to be described in just a few words, they might be
"a thriller with an incredibly strange twist."
Setting
is Washington, D.C., where a Chilean national, Eduardo Allesandro Palmero, an
Allende supporter, is blown up in his car. Both the FBI and the CIA enter the
picture to find out the reasons for the murder.
The book
deals with what they found out about him as well as unraveling the mystery of
his murder.
This is a
high-tension political intrigue with excellent dramatization of the worlds of
good and evil. The reader is taken into an ambivalent world of balancing the
whys of Eduardo's actions against his deeds.
This is
Adler's fifth book and a good one, with a tight plot and excellent
characterizations put together.
Pittsburgh
Press
by Ethel Black
Novel
Full of Intrigue, Passion
Eduardo
Allesandro Palmero, an exile from the deposed Allende government in Chile, is
living in Washington D.C. He is plotting to overthrow the present Chilean
government.
Palmero
becomes involved with three women and uses them in his scheme. He skillfully
manipulates them and uses his power over their passion to get them to do his
bidding. He has them planting listening devices in the Chilean embassy,
carrying tapes and giving him huge sums of money.
Suddenly,
Palmero's life is snuffed out one morning in front of the Chilean Embassy by a
homemade bomb hidden in his car. In flashbacks Palmero's life is depicted as a
series of events which ultimately lead him into a life of political intrigue.
CIA agent
Alfred Dobbs knew everything there was to know about Palmero. Dobbs is
skeptical of the official explanation of Palmero's death as political revenge.
Dobbs digs in and pieces together the threads of Palmero's life. He gets to
know Palmero intimately and finds himself envying this charming and mysterious
man. Dobbs draws his own conclusions on Palmero's death and even understands
why he is killed.
Warren
Adler has written a novel packed full of intrigue and explicit sexual detail.
It is an absorbing and dramatic story of a Chilean Casanova who died as he
lived, with passion.
|
Rolling
Stone
by Greil Marcus
The
thriller memorandum
I read
thrillers for kicks, for escape; but I also read thrillers to heighten my
sense of a world in which violence is so commonplace it seems to have come
loose from motive and purpose. It has its own rules and its own domain, but no
one knows what they are. I read to focus this sense of violence, to gain the
illusion that it all makes some sense.
This may
be little more than escapism by roundabout; still, what's so surprising is how
rarely the spy story or the murder mystery can satisfy even this small
wish-how rarely, in fact, such tales do more than trivialize it. Take three
recent attempts to exploit contemporary terrorism. Warren Adler's The Casanova Embrace is based on the assassination
of Orlando Letelier, who along with a coworker was blown up in Washington,
D.C., in the fall of 1976. Chile's ambassador to the U.S. under Allende,
Letelier was one of the most effective opponents of the current junta; though
the Justice Department has yet to do anything about the case, leaks suggest
the junta had Letelier killed by anti-Castro Cubans, most of whom got their
start in terrorism with U.S. backing, and some of whom may still work with the
CIA. You might think such a story has good possibilities, but you'd be wrong,
at least where Adler is concerned; in his version, Letelier (called "Palmero")
is murdered, not by political enemies but by his lovers and his jealous wife.
As you might imagine, the investigators in The
Casanova Embrace are very surprised by this turn of events.
Times
News (Erie, PA)
I like
Warren Adler's work. I particularly enjoyed Trans-Siberian
Express, a fine re-creation of a fictional train ride, and this new
book, about a Chilean Casanova, who also fights against the military junta
ruling his country, looks lively and interesting. Adler mixes sex and action
in his books and he does it with skill and taste.
See
complete details about The Casanova Embrace
including immediate purchase options.
|
