Book Review: Nothing Lasts Forever By Roderick Thorpe

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It was suggested I read this book by my twitter BFF Julia R Barrett as we had recently been discussing the new Die Hard Movie that I had not a lot of good things to say about, see here.

So, off I go and purchase the book,Nothing Last Forever, written in 1979 and as you can (just) make out from the cover, was the basis of the original Die Hard Movie from 1988.

There are a number of plot changes between the two genres, Maclane in the book is Joe Leland a retired cop now a consultant.  His wife in the film is his daughter in the book  and the bank being robbed in the film is an oil company in the book.

Other than that, we have a (ex) cop running about barefoot and bloodied over broken glass and up and down stairwells killing off the bad guys and gal's while the cops outside, when they turn up late to the party, are as confused and as bungling as they were in the film.  Having said that and having enjoyed the movie for what it was, the book was not to disappointing.  The book may have been written in 1979 but seems to have been set a few years before that as Leland/Maclane keeps drawing on his time as a fighter pilot in WW11.  The language of the book is quite stilted in places but never the less still flows and although having seen the film, there were enough little changes to make you keep turning the pages.

Leland also comes across as a much darker figure than Maclane in that while they are both killing people Maclane deals with it as is his norm, in all of the franchised films, with darkly but laughable humour whereas Leland who has a drink problem and has seen and done enough killing in the war would, I suspect, really like it all to stop, but knows that Gruber (same for movie and book) will kill all the hostages, including Leland's daughter.

There are a couple of plot twists in the book that completely changes the tone from the film and the ending is, well let's just say, a tad different, but all in all a good read and I suspect it would be more so if you are one of the few people on the planet who has managed to avoid the Die Hard Movie Franchise.


Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 4 out of 5 (Mainly due to having seen the movie)
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5