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| Plot Summary of Marco Polo, If You Can |
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"Marco Polo, If You Can
William F. Buckley Jr.
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1982, 233 pp.
ISBN: 0-385-15232-9
Allen Dulles, Director of the CIA, is faced with the challenge of finding and neutralizing a government mole and turning what has been an intelligence disaster to our advantage. The result is a fast paced spy thriller that closely parallels accounts (as I remember them from junior high school current events assignments) of Francis Gary Powers' ill fated U-2 spy flight and his subsequent exchange, on a bridge between East and West Germany, for Soviet East German spy, Rudolf Abel. At the time there was controversy as to how the U-2 was downed. The Soviets claiming that they shot it down. But the U.S. claimed that, at 75,000 feet, the U-2 was too high for both antiaircraft and then current Soviet SAM missile capability.
In the book, Blackford Oakes is recruited back to the CIA by his old friend and mentor, Rufus, shortly after having been fired from the CIA. Allen Dulles has recruited Rufus from semi retirement to manage this delicate mission and Oakes is one of the three agents that Rufus insists he needs for the project. A key feature of Rufus's disinformation plan is the advance leaking to the Soviets of details of a planned U-2 spy flight over the Soviet Union and then faking a malfunction that forces it to crash land inside the Soviet Union. Oakes' love of country and commitment to its freedom is severely tested when he is asked to fly the U-2 and trust that his friend's complex plan to get him out alive will work.
As with other novels in the Blackford Oakes series, the people and events of the story closely parallels real life accounts of the times but the view is that of an insider. "
Chuck Nugent, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Marco Polo, If You Can |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 10%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 60%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30%
Time/era of story:
- 1960's-1970's
Spying/Terrorism Thriller
Yes
Cloak & Dagger Plotlets:
- stopping a saboteur/spy
Kid or adult book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Who's the terrorist enemy here?
- commies!
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- spy
Age:
- 20's-30's
How much violence does he/she use?
- just the right amount
Ethnicity/Race
- White/American
How sensitive is this character?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- very athletic
Main Adversary
Identity:
- an organization
Motive of antagonist
- power
The antagonists are:
- KGB
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- Mid-Atlantic states
Europe
Yes
European country:
- Germany
- Russia
Style
Part of a series?
Yes
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
How many deaths?
- 1
Amount of dialog
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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Click here for more information about this book
William F. Buckley Jr. Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Chuck Nugent
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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