Rating: 
Summary: Greeks...A Tragedy!
Review: Being a Greek,and being an admirer of Maria Kallas, I bought this book to satisfy my curiosity about Kallas' love affair with Onassis, and not to study politics and murder...But I could not put the book down, and I ended up reading the whole thing in one night. It is an-in depth study of Onassis' life,with a surprizing ending of the murder of Bob Kennedy.
As I got more and more into the biography, I fell melancholy for the life of the whole family: death and more death, revenge, pain, love, hatred,adultery, power, weakness. It was another famous greek tragedy, taken this time from the reality world, not from Sophocles' pages.
It is well written and very well documented. I just cannot see jackie O. with the same eyes anymore...
Rating: 
Summary: Credible and Entertaining
Review: By now most people know that the JFK image was an elaborate facade that covered up and hid a more complicated situation; the real story involved a charismatic leader, a shaky marriage and much womanizing. This book fills in a few more blank spots especially about the other half - Jackie and her sister Lee.Peter Evans has already established a fine reputation in a series of 10 prior books including "Ari". Here he tries to clean up a series of loose ends on Aristotle Onassis, his Greek associates, his wife Tina, Maria Callas, Jackie O, her sister Lee, the Kennedy boys JFK and brother Robert Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and others For the most part this is an interesting read but it falls a but it short of being an absolute page turner. Still it is an interesting read and mostly compelling and is based on new information and stories from people wanting to set the record straight after the fact so to speak. I will not repeat the plot in detail here. The main focus of the book is Onassis, and he is attempting to have three or four mistresses or more - all famous women - simultaneously while at first somewhat incredibly also attempting to stay married to his wife Tina - the latter he married when she was just seventeen and he was well into his middle years. He courts both the married Jackie while simultaneously bedding her sister plus opera singer Callas who he has pried away from her husband - all according to the book. This stirs up a lot of animosity with the Kennedy brothers and we follow an interesting and a real life tale of intrigue, jealousy, and revenge. In retrospect we should not have been surprised by the marriage betwen Ari and Jackie in later years. It is like a "tell all" with many twists and turns, rises and falls in health, wealth, and marriages. The book does not have an index but it has an excellent section of detailed notes and a nice collection of photographs. Generally a good read and well researched. 4 stars. Jack in Toronto
Rating:
Summary: In Short There Simply Was Never Camelot
Review: I found this book, intriguing, interesting and sad because it is so credibly written. The footnotes are at times more interesing than the book. The research, the interviews the documentation of where people where, when events occured. Facinating. I have been an admirer of Bobby Kennedy all my life. The poise and class of Jackie Kennedy seemed so believable, undeniable. Sure many know all the stories about the Kennedy men. (I for one wonder when he had time to be president, he seems to have had so many women) Turns out Jackie Kennedy Onasis could keep pace with the darker side of Jack Kennedy and was even greedier than Joe Kennedy. Myths die hard. The author creates the sense of being inside the unraveling of the mystery. It is amost voyeristic to read about the tradegies that these wealthy people created for themselves. I think this book is a must read, but be prepared to be disappointed in what you learn at some level. For in short, there simply never was a happily ever after life in Camelot.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant light on a shady world
Review: I read this book on a flight from Boston to London, and over a weekend, and was gripped from its opening revelation that the Onassis-Bobby Kennedy feud went all the way back to the 1950s, and festered calamitously for nearly 20 years. It explained a lot about Jackie's extraordinary marriage to the Greek billionaire that had been (to me anyway)inexplicable. Although its central revelation (that it was Onassis money that paid for Bobby Kennedy's murder)is interesting, and very well documented, it is the insights to the characters who inhabited the society in which the Kennedys, Jackie O, and Onassis moved, and clashed, which make this book so enjoyable. Not all of them are attractive people but none of them is boring. In spite of its essentially tragic theme, it has some gloriously funny moments, too. I was reminded of a typical Scott Fizgerald tale about the rich, with shades of John le Carre. I started out being cynical about the major claim of this book. If I am still not one hundred per cent convinced about some of the author's disclosures - although he is clearly very well informed, both about terrorists and socialites - I am less cynical about its overall premise. There is plenty that rings true and which explains many of the long-unanswered questions about the astonishing Kennedy-Onassis marriage. I have read quite a few Kennedy books dwelling on the same or similar areas, and this is exceptionally revealing. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in Bobby Kennedy's assassination as well as to those who want to know more about Jackie, Bobby, Aristotle Onassis, and the world in which they lived.
Rating:
Summary: Shocking and Powerful
Review: I was unprepared for a book as blunt as NEMESIS proved to be.
Admittedly, under the law, it is impossible to slander a dead person, but a few of the players in Peter Evans' report still are alive, such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' sister and Senator Edward Kennedy. Nonetheless, they undoubtedly would be construed as public figures under the libel laws of the United States. Evans, therefore, obviously is comfortable with some of the allegations that he makes here.
Nobody who reads this book ever will feel the same about any of the primary cast of characters. President Kennedy reads almost like a sexual pervert and, according to Evans, his wife may have defined the concept of the "Merry Widow." Her sister, Lee Radziwell, comes over as even more ungrounded than Jackie was in conventional morality regarding adultery--and this is being polite.
According to Evans, Marilyn Monroe sounds anything but simple, and Robert Kennedy appears almost venal. Evans casts doubt on everything including the motivation behind Jackie's pregnancies and those of Ethel Kennedy, considering them to be largely political tools contrived by the husbands. This seems hard to believe.
The person who comes across worst is Aristotle Onassis. Among the other assertions in this book, it is claimed that Onassis originally had been a homosexual and that the basis of his fortune had come from drug smuggling.
The kicker is that Evans states that Onassis had arranged for the assassination of Robert Kennedy, his "nememis" of the title, by Arabic terrorists.
NEMESIS makes for gripping reading, one of those books that prove impossible to put down until the very last page.
Rating:
Summary: NEMESIS - A TERRIFIC READ
Review: In Nemesis, Peter Evans makes startling revelations about the involvement of Aristotle Onassis in a plot to murder Robert Kennedy. I read this author's biography of Onassis a few years ago and enjoyed it very much. This book is even better. A two-family saga about two dying breeds, a political thriller, even, in a perverse way, a love story. Nemesis tells the story of two powerful men - Onassis and Bobby Kennedy - and Jackie O, the woman they loved in their own fashion. Evans's revelations about the mores, etiquettes, and rituals, of their world, makes this a fascinating study of a society as well as a compelling story of murder, greed, and lust in high places. Often poignant - especially his portrait of Jackie O, who emerges as a surprisingly strong, articulate, modern woman who knows exactly what she wants and is determined to get it - and sardonic, this is a stimulating and provocative read. I don't know whether all the secrets he dishes along the way can be taken as Gospel, but his sources are impressive, his research is persuasive, and I believed every word ot it. I loved it. A terrific read.
Rating:
Summary: Prepare to have your myths shattered!
Review: Nemesis is a page turner, and contains even more dirt and sleaze on the people involved than you can imagine. It's well written, very well documented, and the author makes an extremely persuading case. My only negatives are that the book has no index and needs one, and that it would have been useful to contain both a family tree for the Onasis family and a "cast of characters" -- not being Greek, I found it wasn't always easy to remember the names and relationships between the many Greek characters. The other thing that surprises me about this book is why it's not on the best seller list -- it should be. It completely deflates the myth of "Camelot," and is a great companion volume to "The Dark Side of Camelot." Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Boring tales of Ari, Jackie, John, etc.
Review: Not worth reading. Unfortunately the minutia overwhelms a somewhat ridiculous premise -- that Ari had Bobby assasinated in order to marry Jackie... I don't think so ! It ought to be a work of fiction, but it is not even entertaining enough, and usually I love novels about the late unfaithful but charismatic President and his lovely wife.
Rating:
Summary: Dishy Non-Fiction Beach Read
Review: The Cast of Characters in this book is unequaled for sheer social and political wattage: Bobby, Jack, Ari, Jackie, Princess Lee, Marilyn, Maria, Gore, Truman -- top-drawer icons of the 50's and 60's who possessed the cachet of first-name-only reocognizability. "Nemesis" gives the confluence of these starcrossed lovers -- and trust me, they all slept together -- a
bloodless quality, as though we have stumbled into a smoky room in Hell where deals with the devil are made. But first we meet Christina, the daughter for whom the yacht (upon which so much of the power sex in this book takes place) is named. Mere months before her suicide, bright but doomed Christina drops a bombshell over lunch with the author, illustrating a connection between Bobby Kennedy's assassination and Aristotle Onassis'
money.
Within each family many secrets were held, from each other and from the world. "Nemesis" depicts the outer edge of an age where secrecy was still available from the press as well, and politicians and other celebrities were able to live in half-shadow, to disguise the emptiness of their arranged lives. Their wanton dance of destruction in this environment is fascinating to watch. If the author had said, in one of his many footnotes, that he had strapped an old gypsy woman to a lie detector machine and verified that she was responsible for placing the curse on the Onassis and Kennedy clans, I'd believe him. You can't read about young Alexander Onassis dying in a plane crash without thinking of John Kennedy, Jr. Obviously, there is a pox on both their houses. How else can you explain
so much unhappiness and loss in the midst of so much privilege and wealth?
The story of Kennedy and Onassis lends itself to conspiracy theories. (Look at the two names together . . . each has seven letters with two consonants in the middle; that's got to mean something!) Mr. Evans has familiarized himself with the voluminous material available on the topic (including Anthony Summers "Goddess," which places Bobby in Marilyn's house the day she died) and he hacks through the forest of speculation surrounding the families with a silent chainsaw, stylishly, but at times indelicately, providing a stream of jaw-dropping facts and sublime quotes which recall Truman Capote as he decimated his beloved socialites in "La Cote Basque."
In fact, Mr. Evans runs the risk of casting doubt upon the veracity of his book because he's obviously having such a good time with the antics of his monsters . . . it is a tale about shady tale-tellers after all, and truth really is stranger than fiction. But to those as curious as Mr. Evans is about this era, his suppositions have the ring of truth to them.
In the absence of empathy or compassion, however, this book suffers. Every one of these creatures, with the exception of poor Maria Callas, seems to exercise their worst motivation at every opportunity.
Although the author makes it hard to see the principals as anything more than a pack of horny, sociopathic vampires drawn to each other in some kind of weird, karmic death embrace, you get the feeling he has given you the goods. I honestly feel I never need to read another word on Kennedy or Onassis after "Nemesis." Nor do I want to. (We want to see them hoisted up, but we don't necessarily want to see them beaten with sticks.)
Peter Evans has supplied a great read that appeals -- in spite of the occasional feeling that, even with all the footnotes and attributions and acknowledgements, he might not have it quite yet. There is the whiff of speculation. After all, Christina Onassis loathed Jacqueline Kennedy. So Evans has buttressed his central revelation with several sources who back him up in his assumption. It seems credible. "Nemesis" reads like a political thriller, which indeed it is, a real-life
"Manchurian Candidate." And if it's true, it is easily one of the most incredible and horrifying stories of our time.
It's the kind of book where you stop at times and marvel at how
beautifully, and savagely, written it is. And how talented Peter Evans is.
He's a great storyteller.
Rating:
Summary: No One Is Spared
Review: There is so much "dirt" in this book, that one almost wants to take a shower after reading it. No one is spared. Onassis, Jackie, JFK, Bobby, Christina, Marilyn, Maria Callas, and almost everyone with whom they came in contact comes off as sleazy, disreputable, and worse...far worse. There are some eye-opening theories, such as the "Manchurian Candidate" programming of Sirhan Sirhan. I might have scoffed at this, but after the events of 9/11, I would have to believe that anything is possible in this world. I first heard of this book through Liz Smith's column, and that's what puzzles me about it. With so many bombshells about so many important people, why wasn't this book at the top of the best seller list for months? Why wasn't the author on all the talk shows? In short, why was there so little publicity? Is it because most people think it's merely tabloid trash, without much validity, or just the opposite...so accurate that no one wants to touch it? Read it, and decide for yourself.
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