Michael Crichton Writing as John Lang

Odds On – Review

During the time Michael Crichton was a medical honors student at Harvard University, in order to make ends meet, penned several novels from 1966-1972. Anyone who has attended university, let alone, medical school, wonders how any young man had the hours to write full-length novels. One of his first published crime thrillers, Odds On, reveals a novelist that understands his genre and subject matter. It also reveals Crichton's evolution as an author, the author to later become one of America's most-read novelists in the world.

The publisher, Hard Case Crime, has published many of Crichton's early works written under the pseudonym, John Lang. Other novel's by John Lang include Binary, Drug of Choice, Zero Cool and many others. The covers of these books are reminiscent of the crime magazines (pulp fiction) of the 30's and 40', when an author would be paid a penny a word for a short story. The cover of Odds On, is by the painter, Glen Orbic. And it certainly, in style, represents the tone of the text.

It is unclear why Crichton decided to write under the pseudonym of John Lang, but as one writer has said, Crichton enjoyed having “another identity”, and at the time it was an “open secret”. Other sources have claimed that he used the pseudonym, John Lang because he didn't want his patients to think he was using them for his characters. Many of his fans were not aware of these early works until after the author died of cancer at the age of 66 in 2008.

Odds On is a rather involved plan to run a heist at a luxury resort, Hotel Reina, in Costa Brava, Spain. The mastermind of the robbery is a tech-savvy, logically-minded American, Steven Jencks. He's a sophisticated and charming man with a rough and dangerous appearance. There are two other members of the crew: an elegant Englishman whose forte is money and a Mexican,, Miguel, whose expertise as a smuggler is unsurpassed.

Most of the women characters is this pot-boiler, are sexy cut-outs, all beautiful, and all untrustworthy. The modern reader, especially women would find these characters reprehensible as they are merely used props for the story, and description-wise, cliches.

In defense of Crichton in this instance, pulp fiction writers, including the greats like Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain characterized women in just the same way. Remember Odds On was written and published in 1966, when women, for the most part, were considered sex objects and baby-making receptacles to populate the world's population. Ridiculous but unfortunately, a reality of the time.

Personally as a fan of the great pulp-crime-writers, young Crichton, working towards a medical degree, managed to produce a noteworthy piece in the genre.

If you're a fan of Crichton, you will not be disappointed in these early novels.