First published 1977. Harper paperback, 2009, pp 274, c.65,000 words.
Everyone involved with this book should be embarrassed. Maclean usually writes to a much higher standard than this. The New York Times review said MacLean “stumbles badly”; how right. The plot is implausibly ludicrous, the characters a mess of cliches. My guess is that Maclean was told to write something to appeal to the American market and therefore his cast list are nearly all Americans. Unfortunately all Maclean seems to know about them has been distilled from American TV serials, pot boiler movies and novels of the period. Maclean’s agent and publisher probably didn’t bother to read the resulting mess of unbelievable situations and people. If they did and approved it then shame on them. Even worse are the cynical people at Harper who reissued this rubbish and had the temerity to charge £9.99 for 274 thin pages in 2009. (You could have bought Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan for £7.99 with 374 pages in 2013 – a wholly superior book on every dimension.) Even with a fast read I spotted three typos; how is that possible on a reissue? Probably nobody could bare to proof read it. I’m glad I bought my copy from a second-hand bookseller.
The only good thing one can say for this book is that the action keeps going from start to finish, which is not such a bad thing in a thriller. It is an easy read in Maclean’s usual unadorned prose.
Maclean has done much better before. Try When Eight Bells Toll if you fancy some of his better escapist stuff. This one is strictly for Maclean completists.
© William John Graham, May 2022.