Alistair MacLean: 6 Complete Novels

This one volume contains six thrillers by Alastair MacLean, including at least four of his best. MacLean was a great thriller writer, but if you don't already know, he had distinct periods in his writing, and things kind of went down the tubes in the '70s. "The guns of Navarone," originally published in 1957, is from his early period, when he wrote epic WWII stories; it's the famous fiction of a team of commandos sent to a Greek island to destroy a German artillery battery. "Force 10 from Navarone (1968)," "Puppet on a Chain (1969)," and "Caravan to Vaccares (1970)" are from his later third-person-thriller period. The first is about a British commando team sent to WWII Yugoslavia on a secret demolition mission; the second is a contemporary police thriller about a trio of undercover British police sent to Amsterdam to break up a narcotics ring; in the third detectives join an annual gypsy pilgrimage to Provence, France, to investigate associated deaths. All are crackerjack thrillers, as, IMHO, is "Seawitch (1977)," a thriller about murder and kidnapping aboard an oil rig. It's part of MacLean's weak final phase, though, as is "Goodbye California (1978)," a pretty over-the-top thriller in which terrorists steal nuclear materials in a bid to destroy California! If you like thriller novels these are great rainy-day reading.