It has been a few months since I tried reading an Alistair MacLean novel. The last one I finished was the disappointing Goodbye, California (1978). I expounded on that book enough in its own review, so I’ll just say by way of reminder that it was a lot of buildup for a major letdown.
This book was different thankfully, and I’ll rank it high up there with some of the more entertaining spy novels from the 1960s. This one involves the Brits, the Americans, and (sort of) the Russians and is a pretty highly-charged thriller set both aboard a massive American submarine gliding below ice floes and atop the floes themselves on a research station known as Drift Ice Station Zebra.
Following a terrible accident at the station which rests on the ice just 300 miles from the North Pole, a rescue operation is launched. The American submarine, her crew, and her surprise-guest Dr. Carpenter find themselves deep below the frigid waters of the Arctic Sea searching for an opening in the ice through which they can launch a rescue attempt. When they finally make to the compound and discover survivors, Dr. Carpenter realizes that not all is what it seems, and there may very well be murderers and espionage afoot!
As with several of MacLean’s other books (like Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone), Ice Station Zebra was also remade into a hit major motion picture (probably in the 1970s and one I’ve admittedly never seen). Despite the thrill they bring to the Box Office, MacLean’s books have been hit-and-miss for me. The plots almost always draw me in, but as with the aforementioned Goodbye, California or The Golden Gate (1976), plot can take the story only so far. Soon characters need to help carry the weight. Characters, setting, and above all else, climax and conclusion! For all his fame and success, MacLean disappoints way too often.
There are still a few titles by this guy that I’d like to try, but they’re all his earlier work. He seems to be an author who found great, early success but who couldn’t handle it long-term. So even though I’ve got a few of his older titles still on my shelves, eh, I’m done with them. [Editor’s Note: The next book of his I tried was Air Force One Is Down (1981), a decent novel.]
©2022 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)