Dimiter
by William Peter Blatty
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Description
As state security in 1970s Albania tortures a prisoner named Dimiter, known as the American "agent from hell," the staff at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital becomes enmeshed in a series of unexplainable deaths, until events explode in a surprising climax.Tags
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Member Reviews
Dimiter. William Peter Blatty. 2010. Blatty, author of The Exorcist, has written a novel that is a weird mix of religion, espionage, and detection. The book opens with a mystery man being tortured in Albania and then moves to an Israel. The police struggle to solve a series of strange murders that you know are connected in some way with the man being tortured in Albania. The reader doesn’t understand what is happening until last chapter so you read on faith that the book will make sense. And it does. It is a short compelling book, but not for everyone. Reviewers on Amazon either seem to love it or hate it. We saw Blatty interviewed on The World over Live and were impressed with him and decided to read the book.
I was hoping for a lot more from this book, based on reviews I had read. It was not as mysterious and supernatural as I had hoped. It was a lot more confusing than I would've expected. When the details were explained in the police station near the end of the book, it only made me more confused. While I appreciate the author's gift with language, I just didn't wind up liking this as much as I expected to or wanted to.
The Redemption (published elsewhere as Dimiter) is a spy thriller with very little in relation to the topics of Blattys other works. Set during the cold war period the novel starts in Albania with a spy named Paul Dimiter being tortured by the authorities.
A year later and a whole series of events are being investigated by a Policeman called Peter Meral, is there a link between these and Dimiter? And if there is, can he find it?
I found this book at times very slow, and the plot occasionaly incoherent. It has been praised as Blatty's best work, but I don't think it can hold a light to his earlier offerings. Or maybe I just expected something different.
A year later and a whole series of events are being investigated by a Policeman called Peter Meral, is there a link between these and Dimiter? And if there is, can he find it?
I found this book at times very slow, and the plot occasionaly incoherent. It has been praised as Blatty's best work, but I don't think it can hold a light to his earlier offerings. Or maybe I just expected something different.
The author weaves it slow so you are left in the dark for much of the time but the story and the characters are developed so well after a short time you are well consumed.
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ThingScore 75
Blatty’s greatest strength has also always been his most mockable weakness: his complete, unabashed sincerity. Dimiter is so unhampered by the agonies of irony and self-awareness that it’s occasionally impossible to read with a straight face, as characters dream deep symbols and one-liners are delivered with the force of prophecy. And yet that same unwinking intensity gives the story its show more power. show less
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Author Information
46+ Works 9,867 Members
William Peter Blatty was born in Manhattan, New York on January 7, 1928. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1950. After serving in the Air Force, he worked for the United States Information Agency in Beirut. He returned to the United States for a public relations job in Los Angeles, where he hoped to begin his career as a writer. In 1961, show more he appeared as a contestant on You Bet Your Life. He and a fellow contestant won $10,000. He quit his day job and become a full-time writer. He collaborated with the director Blake Edwards on the screenplays for several films including A Shot in the Dark, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, Darling Lili, and Gunn. He wrote several horror fiction books including The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration, and Legion. All of the books were adapted into movies with the screenplays written by Blatty. He won an Academy Award for The Exorcist screenplay. He also adapted his novel John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! for the screen. He wrote several memoirs including Which Way to Mecca, Jack?, I'll Tell Them I Remember You, and Finding Peter. He died from multiple myeloma on January 12, 2017 at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2010
- People/Characters
- Peter Meral; Moses Mayo; Paul Dimiter; Selca Decani; Rako Bey; Ligeni Shirqi (show all 28); Samia Sabrilu; Morna Altamori; Stephen Kurti; Lazar Shantoja; Liu Ng Tsu; Sabri Melcani; Samia Maroon; Dennis Mooney; Eddie Shore; Joseph Temescu; Thomas Hulda; Martin Kerr; Ari Zev; Lod Evert; Moshe Zui; William Sandalls; Issa Zananiri; Charles Bell; Shlomo Uris; Jeton Agim Vlora; Michael Wilson; Saul of Tarsus
- Important places
- Albania; Jerusalem
- Epigraph
- On his way to Damascus ... suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him ... And for three days he could not see ...
Acts 9:9 - Dedication
- IN MEMORY OF PETE
- First words
- Ninety three million miles from the sun, in the damp of a windowless concrete room in a maze of other rooms and cells and passageways where grace and hope had never touched, the Interrogator sat behind a tight wooden table wi... (show all)th a mind gone blank as the notepad before him.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Meral smiled.
- Blurbers
- Folsom, Allan
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 256
- Popularity
- 127,191
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.23)
- Languages
- 5 — Bulgarian, Czech, English, French, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 7
