MacLean was a wildly successful Scottish thriller writer who dominated the adventure genre during the 1950s and 60s. He started with three novels set during the Second World War, and then came what I think of as ‘peak MacLean’ – a magnificent run of six novels from 1959 to 1966, from The Last Frontier (The Secret Ways in the US) to When Eight Bells Toll. All were set in contemporary times, but crucially with plot and character backstories firmly rooted in the recent wartime conflict. It was clear that wartime experience served as a permanent and automatic calibration for MacLean, in terms of peril, tension, stakes, worth and duty. I learned a lot from the patient way MacLean set up the story and sucked me in, slowly, with great self-confidence. Often the first many pages covered actions only seconds long. His heroes tended toward a stoic, lantern-jawed archetype, but Maclean’s unique talent was to bring them to the edge of absurdity, but never let them fall off the cliff. I’m picking The Golden Rendezvous – a reluctant-hero seafaring story full of intrigue and breathless tension – but all the peak-MacLean titles are equally fantastic. A huge influence.
A timeless classic of modern-day piracy from the acclaimed master of action and suspense.
Aboard the SS Campari, all is not well.
For Johnny Carter, the Chief Officer, the voyage has already begun badly; but it's only when the Campari sails that evening, after a succession of delays that he realises something is seriously wrong.
A member of the crew is suddenly missing and the stern-to-stern search only serves to increase tension. Then violence erupts and suddenly the whole ship is in danger. Is the Campari a victim of modern day piracy? And what of the strange cargo hidden below the decks?
Alistair MacLean, the son of a minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 he joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow University and became a teacher. Two and a half years spent aboard a wartime cruiser gave him the background for HMS Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th century, the author of 29 worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been filmed.
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