Rating: WARTY!
Not to be confused with Nothing Lasts Forever by Sidney Sheldon, or a score of other similarly titled novels, this one, written in 1979, was the basis for the 1988 movie "Die Hard" featuring Bruce Willis. Even from the first two chapters, it's quite clear that the book and movie diverge considerably, which I guess is predictable. I hate to say this, but the movie was better!
In the move, NY cop John McClane is visiting LA to meet with his somewhat estranged wife. She had taken a big job opportunity, and John was unable to immediately move with her because of his unfinished police work, although that struck me as a poor excuse. There is resentment between them: that she would go ahead without him. that he would seemingly want to hold back her career. They have two children and this is the first time he has been to see them. Apparently Holly, his wife, who has taken back her single name of Gennaro, had either never seen fit or never had the time, to visit him in NY. For some reason on Christmas Eve, the Nakatomi corporation expected the entire staff to attend a party in celebration of a big deal that had just gone through.
The first two chapters of the novel is covered by the first two minutes of the movie, and the differences between it and the movie are evident right from the off. There is no John McClane here. The guy is Joe Leland, which to me has nowhere near the appeal of the movie character's name for a heroic figure. Leland isn't in his mid-thirties as Willis was when he first played McClane. Leland is in his fifties at least, and is gray-haired. He isn't married to Holly Gennaro, he's her father, and is simply visiting her for Christmas. There is a party where he first meets up with Holly, but this is the Klaxon corporation which is celebrating. In the novel we get no perspective other than Leland's (although it's thankfully not first person) and there is no masterful Hans Gruber as portrayed by Alan Rickman.
In general terms, the story is similar to the movie, with Leland wandering around the building, slowly bumping off the bad guys, causing mayhem, and so on. the problem with it is that unlike the movie, the action is constantly interrupted by angsty introspective roadblocks from Leland, which frankly annoyed the heck out of me. I can't recommend this novel at all. Watch the movie if you can stand that kind of a movie. It's better than this.
