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Alistair MacLeanAlistair Stuart MacLean (21 April 1922 - 2 February 1987; Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair MacGill-Eain, actually Alistaur Stuart MacLean) was a Scottish novelist and one of the best and most successful thriller writers ever. H was the third of four sons. His father was a minister.
MacLean was released from the Royal Navy in 1946. He then studied English at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1953, and worked as a school teacher in Rutherglen. While a university student, he began writing short stories for extra income. In 1954 he won a competition with the maritime story "Dileas". Collins asked him for a novel and he responded with HMS Ulysses, one of his most famous thrillers. It was a great success. Along with the English writer Desmond Bagley, Alistair MaClean dominated the bestseller lists. He turned out one great bestseller after the other. And his books really were - and still are - amazingly good. HMS Ulysses, by Alistair MacLeanBibliography, Alistair MacLean
This wonderful thriller draws heavily on MacLean’s personal However, her crew is pushed well beyond the limits of endurance, and the book starts in the aftermath of a mutiny on board. Ulysses puts to sea again to escort the vital convoy FR-77 heading for Murmansk with much needed supplies for the Red Army. Seemingly all elements have a part to play against them: they encounter an unusually fierce arctic storm, German ships and U-boats, as well as airborne attacks. Together, nature and the German attacks slowly decimate the convoy from 32 ships to only 5. HMS Ulysses herself is lost in a failed attempt to ram into an attacking cruiser after all her other weapons had been destroyed. The heroes in this book feel very much like real men - with the failings and weaknesses of real men. They are not smarter than their enemies. They are not better at what they are doing. They are not even more motivated than their enemies. But they are resilient to the extreme. Their heroism stem from a stoic will to not give up, not give in. HMS Ulysses is perhaps the most gripping war story I have ever read. It is so realistic, and Maclean pays so much attention to detail, that you can almost feel the movements of the sea and taste the salt on your lips. It is a book of man against the sea as much as a book of man against man. Ulysses has brilliant character development and superb technical detail. It is an exceptional thriller, superb, in a class of its own. If ever there was a must read, this is it. Links to the books by Alistair MacLean at Amazon US
 , Amazon UK , and Amazon CAN . See also Bokkilden.no and Tanum.The Guns of Navarone, by Alistair MacLeanThis book is one of Alistair MacLean’s finest books. It is, The Guns of Navarone is about an undercover commando mission led by a famed New Zealand mountaineer, Keith Mallory. He leads a small team of specialists on a sabotage mission of some huge naval guns in a seemingly impregnable fortress that the Germans have built in a rocky cliff overlooking a strait that is of strategic importance to the allies. There are twelve hundred British soldiers isolated on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast, waiting to die. Twelve hundred lives in jeopardy, lives that could be saved if the guns of Navarone could be silenced. The guns are extremely well placed and catastrophically accurate. And Navarone itself is a grim bastion of narrow straits manned by a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians in an apparently impregnable iron fortress. And the guns are shielded under a mountain overhand and are impervious to air strike. To Captain Keith Mallory and his small party of specialists that had been detailed to scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone and to blow up the guns seemed a daunting task. To everybody else it seemed a suicide mission. The Guns of Navarone is one of the best war thrillers ever written. It is an adventure story that is exciting to the extreme and told with mastery by Alistair MacLean. The story – the plot – is complicated but very compellingly told. It is a great story with a lot of substance, told by one of the best thriller writers ever! South by Java Head, by Alistair MacleanThis excellent thriller has never been rated quite as high as MacLean’s very best, such as Ulysses, The Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare. Even so, South by Java Head is set in 1942, and tells a story taking place in connection with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. Now Singapore, the fortress that the British claimed could not be taken, lies burning and shattered, at this point defenseless before the conquering hordes of the Japanese Army. The last boat slips out of the harbor into the South China Sea. On board are a desperate group of people, each with a secret to guard, each willing to kill to keep that secret safe. Who or what is the dissolute Englishman, Farnholme? Or the elegant Dutch planter, Van Effen? The strangely beautiful Eurasian girl, Gudrun? The slave trader, Siran? The story is full of suspense and you know that something is wrong with more than one of the passengers' stories. Also, why are the Japanese chasing them with all they have and refusing to let them get away? Only one thing is certain: the rotting tramp steamer is a floating death trap. Dawn sees them far out to sea but with the first murderous dive bombers already aimed at their ship. Thus begins an ordeal few are to survive, a nightmare succession of disasters wrought by the hell-bent Japanese, the unrelenting tropical sun and by the survivors themselves, whose hatred and bitterness divides them one against the other. South by Java Head was MacLean’s third book. I liked it a lot when I first read it, and I still like it. It is not, in my opinion, as good as the previous two books, and there are several logically implausible elements to the plot, but even so it is a great and very entertaining book. I recommend it for MacLean-fans, but you haven’t read MacLean before, you should instead start with HMS Ulysses. Links to the books by Alistair MacLean at Amazon US
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He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman, and Leading Torpedo Operator, on PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship, and on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser. Royalist participated in two Arctic convoys and escorted carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz and other targets off the Norwegian coast. In 1944 he served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France.
experiences in the Royal Navy during World War II, especially the ill-fated PQ-17 convoy to Murmansk. The novel features a light cruiser, similar to the real Dido class cruisers, extremely well armed and one of the fastest ships in the world.
of course, a work of fiction, but based on the real events surrounding the Battle of Leros in World War II. As a World War II thriller, it is outstanding. The story in The Guns of Navarone is very suspenseful, excellently told, and a plot that could hardly be better. The book was later was adapted into a motion picture with Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn. And while the movie is great, the book is better!
it s a very good book, exciting, full of those extraordinary descriptions that MacLean did so well, and fun to read.
