A.k.a. The Dark Crusader

I’m kind of a sucker for Cold-War era adventure novels, so I wasn’t surprised that a whole shelf of Alistair MacLean titles caught my eye one day in a thrift store. I purchased two to try, figuring I could always find more if I liked them. This is the first title I tried, and I was really pleasantly surprised.

My seven-year-old daughter asked me what the story was about, so I’ll summarize it simply the way I did for her. “It’s about a spy who gets stuck on an island where bad guys are trying to steal a rocket.” That summary wouldn’t suffice as a blurb, but hopefully you get the idea.

A few things about this book stood out to me which make me want to read more from Alister MacLean. First and foremost, the book was clean. I read it mostly at night, so I may have dozed off once or twice, but I can’t recall a single curse word from the entire book. That’s an impressive feat, especially considering the countless scrapes in which the hero, John Bentall, finds himself, and the numerous rogues he meets along the way. A woman’s also involved, but their relationship is as innocent as I imagine my own parents’ dating relationship was back in the day. Save for the many murders and whatnot, this was a pretty innocent tale of espionage and death.

I also enjoyed the intricacies of the plot, which make Moonraker (Ian Fleming‘s third James Bond novel which I recently read) feel like nothing more than a barely completed outline. James Bond struggles somewhat in that book, but John Bentall proves himself to be so much more human, so weak and yet determined and just barely up to the challenges at hand. I wouldn’t call the story realistic, but it certainly felt more engaging than Moonraker. Both books, incidentally, deal with pyscho killers trying to destroy the world with the most technologically advanced rockets, and while Fleming published his novel six years earlier than MacLean, I wouldn’t say that either stepped on the others’ toes.

I will likely be adding MacLean’s books to my list of must-read adventure authors—alongside some other favorites like Clive Cussler, Geoffrey Household, and Lionel Davidson. The only other MacLean title I have on hand is his 1976 novel The Golden Gate. I hope it doesn’t disappoint! [Editor’s note: Yeah, it totally does.]

©2020 E.T.

Read More from Alistair MacLean:

• HMS Ulysses (1955)
• The Black Shrike (1961)
• Ice Station Zebra (1963)
• The Golden Gate (1976)
• Goodbye, California (1978)
• Air Force One Is Down (1981)