Odds On

Odds On is

Plot summary

It describes an attempt of robbery in an isolated hotel on Costa Brava. The robbery is planned with the help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen events get in the way.

The three Americans needed cover, as lone men stood out. So each decided he would pick up a girl, and mingle with the crowd.

The women

• Annette was a working girl who did her best work after hours.
• Cynthia was
  nymphomaniac who liked marijuana
  and men—often together.
• Jenny was a rich girl who wanted to be loved for her body.

The women were irrelevant, as the men's real interest was the hotel's safe, which would net them a million dollars in jewels, cash, and traveler's checks. The crime was brilliantly conceived. It was masterminded by a modern computer. But when they forgot the biggest risk of all—the women, and sex.^[1]

Structure and format

As in many other Crichton novels the chapters are named by date as in a diary, rather than by number or other content. In this particular novel the chapters reflect the total timespan, the ticking clock, of the plot as a whole. The fifteen chapters begins with Saturday, June Fourteenth, and ending with Afternoon, June Twenty-Second. The timespan of the story is just a little more than a week, which is yet another similarity to Crichton's later novels.^[1]

Being his first book, it also contains some of Crichton's 'trademarks' for the first time. Among other things, Crichton started his tradition of beginning his novels with quotes:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

– Benjamin Disraeli

Background

Crichton wrote the book in 1965 while a student at Harvard Medical School. He sent it to Doubleday for consideration under the name "John Lange". A reader at Doubleday loved the book but thought it was "too saucy" for that company, so sent it on to a friend at New American Library.^[4]

Crichton used the name John Lange because at this stage he planned to be a doctor and did not want his patients worried he would use them for his plots. The name came from a fairy tale writer called Andrew Lang; Crichton added an "e" and substituted his own real first name, John, for Andrew.^[5]

Proposed adaptation

In 1969, around the time film rights were bought for Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, independent producer Sam Roy bought the film rights to Odds On.^[6] However, no movie was made.

References