Revenge of Odessa by Tony Kent and Frederick Forsyth

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on November 18, 2025

Frederick Forsyth’s first published novel, The Day of the Jackal, remains one of my all-time favorite thrillers, perhaps because I read it when I was still young and impressionable. I recall thinking that I had never read anything like it. I was not quite as impressed with his second novel, The Odessa File, but I nevertheless recall being riveted by it.

Forsyth died earlier this year. His name, along with co-author Tony Kent, appears on the cover of Revenge of Odessa, but that doesn’t mean much. Robert Ludlum’s name regularly appears on new books and he’s been dead for more than twenty years. Forsyth apparently suggested the sequel’s plot, or at least the premise (presumably something more than “the Odessa returns”), but Kent was responsible for crafting the content. Unsurprisingly — and meaning no disrespect to Tony Kent — the sequel is less captivating than The Odessa File. My overall reaction to Revenge of Odessa is that Forsyth already told this story, but told it better. Still, it compares favorably to (or at least is no worse than) contemporary action thrillers.

Odessa is a continuation of the Nazi party that positions itself to rise again by infiltrating government offices and other positions of power. It was thwarted in the first novel and the organization was suppressed. Now Odessa is back because you just can’t keep a good conspiracy down.

Georg Miller is the son of Horst Miller, who father worked for the BDN, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Georg’s grandfather is Peter Miller, a reporter who was the protagonist in The Odessa File.

Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Georg is a journalist/podcaster. He understands that Germany has become a “tinderbox, primed to explode in a direction Georg found unthinkable.” Anti-Nazi sentiment has given way to rising nationalism, a political philosophy that didn’t work out well for Germany in the last century. Now Alternative for Germany (AfD), characterizing itself as a populist party, is convincing voters to embrace its neo-Nazi rhetoric. The party defines immigrants as “the enemy,” particularly if they don’t share the belief that white Christians are a superior form of life.

The story begins with the death of Senator Jack Johnson, whose home burns while he is trying to deflect the sexual attentions of an intern. A few months later, a terrorist attack in Stuttgart includes gun violence against children. Islamic terrorists are blamed, but Miller thinks the true perpetrators staged the incident to stoke fear and hatred. He heads to a Stuttgart hospital to interview survivors, where he encounters Carl Ackermann, a demented old guy who mistakes Georg for his father. Ackermann is a bit confused because he remembers killing Horst and snapping the neck of his “dirty Jew wife.” This comes as news to Georg.

Georg breaks into the hospital records office and rather improbably comes across an entry that refers to Odessa. He makes a nuisance of himself while inquiring about Ackermann and soon finds himself being chased through the hospital by killers who serve Odessa. In various forms, that chase continues as Georg strives to prevent a catastrophic event that will advance Odessa’s scheme to gain control of the US government.

The story is based on familiar elements. The senator’s death is connected to a larger Odessa plot. A young Black woman who works for a political campaign learns some details of the plot, placing her life in peril when she falls into the clutches of Nazi villains. Scott Brogan, an action hero who is also Georg’s godfather, resurfaces in Georg’s life and keeps him alive while he drifts from action scene to action scene. Near the end, Georg learns uncomfortable truths about his family and friends.

Forsyth’s novel was based on intrigue, while Kent leans heavily on action to carry the story. The action scenes are lively, making Revenge of Odessa easy to recommend to action thriller fans. Little about the novel is intriguing, particularly in comparison to Forsyth’s original, but it serves as a reasonably entertaining reminder of the horrors that await the world if nationalist extremism is allowed to flourish.

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The Fox by Frederick Forsyth

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on October 23, 2018

The writer who started the trend of giving villains a cool nickname with The Day of the Jackal has returned with The Fox. Except that the Fox isn’t a villain. He’s an autistic teen hacker who is pretty much indifferent to, or intimidated by, the non-digital world. In that regard, Frederick Forsyth is following the trend of creating a hacker with an emotional disorder. The Fox, we soon learn, is the best hacker in the world.

After months of investigation, a harmless breach of the NSA database is traced to a house in a suburb north of London. The Americans, certain that the hacker will be protected by armed terrorists, want to send in SEALs with guns blazing, but the British insist on a more subtle, clandestine operation to occupy the house. Thus they manage to avoid killing the Fox, a teenager with Asperger’s syndrome, and his innocent family.

The Fox simply wanted to meet the challenge of breaking into an NSA’s database, but the Americans claimed he caused millions of dollars of “damage,” meaning it will cost millions to fix the flaw that he exploited and exposed but did not create. As is often true of cybercrimes that do not involve theft, the damage the Fox caused was to egos, not cybersystems.

Forsyth thus sets up a vulnerable teenager as a standard but sympathetic character. Wielding flattery as a weapon, Sir Adrian Weston convinces the American president (who is easily manipulated by flattery) to let Britain hang onto the Fox, where he will become a key player in Operation Troy. One of his first tasks proves to be supremely embarrassing to Russia, which prompts a call for revenge against the Fox. He later takes on Iran, North Korea (twice) and Russia again.

Forsyth portrays the United States (or more particularly Trump, although not by name) as extraordinarily gullible in trusting North Korea, making decisions based on ego (including the desire for a Nobel peace prize) rather than facts. Some readers might disagree with that assessment. Those readers may find themselves disliking The Fox for political reasons (assuming that they understand Forsyth is disparaging their favorite president). On the other hand, readers who get their news from a wide range of apolitical sources will likely regard Forsyth’s portrayal of the administration as spot on.

Forsyth’s political digs at America are amusing, but the plot comes across as more fantasy than thriller. In a fairly nonviolent way, the Fox manages to do serious but lasting damage to three totalitarian regimes. If only it were so, the world would be a safer place today. Yet the plot leads to those results without generating much tension (certainly nothing like Forsyth has managed in his better novels). Forsyth injects some action scenes as Britain’s best are assigned to protect the Fox from snipers and assault teams, but their success depends on luck as much as skill. This is far from an edge-of-the seat thriller, although Forsyth’s novels always move with good pace.

Wesley is portrayed as a typically competent strategist, an exemplar of British reserve, while the Fox is an insular hacker stereotype. A couple of collateral characters have a subdued romance, but nothing particularly surprising happens during the course of the novel. It is fun, however, to imagine that one autistic kid (with some stalwart Brits on his side) could make the world such a better place. I find it hard to dislike such an optimistic novel.

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