Krishna
Alistair MacLean writes well, has a penchant for aristocratic language which nevertheless did not seem odd even in the eighties when he was at his peak. In addition, the twists and turns keep coming and keep you turning the pages. Normally.
He himself is an interesting person. He is the son of a Scottish minister. English was learnt as a second language (after Gaelic, his mother tongue). He worked as a teacher in England. He also, suddenly, decided to stop writing and run a hotel business in England. Three years later, he returned to his writing.
Alistair can also be unpredictable. Some of his books are excellent – The Guns of Navarone or Force 10 from Navarone , for example, or Where Eagles Dare and some can be downright boring and I am not even talking about his last novels like The Way To Dusty Death which was a disaster. Even things like Ice Station Zebra seemed to drone on and on. Where does this book stand? Let us see.
First, I will keep an open mind and will not judge it by when it was written. (This was the last book published by him).
The story starts interestingly enough.
A ship is in flames and sinking and a plane, which could be a military plane (Did it attack the ship?) or civilian, also is sinking. A British naval ship goes to investigate with O’Rourke, aristocratic Lieutenant McCafferty (who is an electronics genius), Van Gelden and the boss Talbot. They realize that the downed plane was a US plane on a secret mission.
The cat and mouse game begins with the survivors in the submarine and a mysterious death of chef and engineer in the engine room.
Experts come in a hurry from Washington and we learn that the plane that drowned was American, carrying nuclear weapons (including a Hydrogen bomb inside). I will give this much to Alistair. He knows his facts. He makes a character correctly mention that the hydrogen weapon’s fusion is started off by the fission of a normal atom bomb within it.
Lots of blather about how seismic activity can trigger a mega explosion. Then comes suspicions about the oh so clean skipper of the vessel, which is interesting. But too much conversation about technical mechanical things that get boring after a while, despite his characteristic light veined, aristocratic humour running through it.
The President of USA promises to help. Lots of fresh blather about how brave and knowledgeable and reliable everyone is and how mysterious Andropoulos is. It is funny how when Van Gelder is asked to use his charms to learn secrets from the pretty woman on board, he behaves. Unbelievably corny and unnatural in the context of the modern world.
They all learn the Andropoulos is perhaps involved in arms smuggling as well as drug smuggling.
I tried to keep an open mind but all those excruciating details about pulling up a plane by a pulley and careful measurements and markings and moves etc.. No, this is not a great story to read
The ending is full of twists, vintage Alistair McLean. However, it is too much of a travel to reach there. Thank God it is a small book.
3/ 10
– – Krishna (Sep 2018)