Review of Mario Puzo’s Six Graves to Munich Essay

Mario Puzo’s obsession with the European underworld begins with Munich, before he enthralled us with ‘The Sicilian’. Mario Puzo, writing as Mario Cleri delivers a straightforward revenge story. The plot is not intense or tight. Compiled a year before he gave us ‘The Godfather’, the plot celebrates Michael Rogan, the protagonist. Captain Michael Rogan is transferred to Munich to aid the American Intelligence during the Second World War. He is arrested and tortured by seven Gestapo officers, at the Munich Palace of justice. They murder his pregnant wife, leave him for dead and escape to new identities after the Second World War. Rogan eventually survives, recovers from his horrific injuries and spends the following ten years planning how best to spell revenge. He sets about tracking his Nazi targets, either sides of the Iron Curtain. The plot also explores the themes of love, revenge and lust. Rogan first travels to a sensual night club in the suburbs of Munich to erase his first target. He then escapes to a brothel where he falls for the beautiful Rosalie. Rogan leaves Rosalie at his hide out in Berlin and travels to Spain and Italy to resume his killing spree. And by the time he returns to Munich to eradicate his last target, The German Intelligence and the American Task Force sniff out Rogan’s whereabouts. Rogan, for his serial killing act, makes it to the hit list of the German Intelligence. Six Graves to Munich, was Puzo’s early days a writer. The plot was later adopted by Frederick Forsyth, an English writer for his bestseller ‘The Odessa File’. Puzo’s little known classic has notched itself up there among his other masterpieces.