Two Book Reviews: When Eight Bells Toll and Puppet on a Chain

[nuranar]

I've had a few friends-list additions (Yay!) since I last wrote about Alistair MacLean, one of my Favorite Authors Evah. To sum up, since explaining would take too long, he wrote action/adventure/spy novels from the 1950s to the 1980s. They particularly appeal to me because they (1) are really exciting, (2) are complexly and carefully plotted, (3) have really good characters, (4) are written with exquisite and delightful language and wording, (5) have no more profanity than would be found in a typical 1930's mystery, and (6) have the perfect touch of romance while lacking any sexual language, double entendres, or escapades whatsoever.

The primary drawback to MacLean's writing is that reasons (1)-(4) are not consistent throughout his books. He became an alcoholic, and I understand that's the primary reason why his writing declined so strikingly. I am a compulsive, extremely fast reader of fiction, but my experiences with his work range from I'm-staying-up-til-4-to-finish to I'm-finally-finished-and-I-can't-remember-what-happened. It's really sad. Thankfully, the good stuff outweighs the bad, and even his "bad" is bad only in comparison.

Below I freely adapt text and lists from Wikipedia, where I learned just why my reader experiences varied so widely when I was first trying to find his stuff. (I don't think it's in print - go for used paperbacks and the library.) The breakdown into periods and styles are generalizations, but reasonably accurate and fairly useful.  The links are to my reviews.  I have read all the ones in bold.

The books of the first period, 1955-1959, were all written in third person, had a somewhat epic tone (especially HMS Ulysses, one of the most powerful novels I've ever read), and except for The Secret Ways were set during World War II. The Guns of Navarone is somewhat grim, but it's the least epic of the four and a fantastic book.

• HMS Ulysses
• The Guns of Navarone
• South by Java Head
• The Last Frontier / The Secret Ways (review)

Second period books, 1959-1963, were written in first person, laced with a dry, sardonic, self-depreciating humour, and set in contemporary times. These are MacLean's most intensely plotted tales, masterfully blending thriller and detective elements.

• Night Without End (review)
• Fear is the Key (review)
• The Dark Crusader / The Black Shrike (review)
• The Golden Rendezvous (review)
• The Satan Bug (review)
• Ice Station Zebra

The books of the third period, 1966-1971, are a varied collection that still maintained a generally high quality, with some books harking back to each of the first two periods but usually taking a more cinematic approach, not surprising since he began writing screenplays during this time. For example, Where Eagles Dare was written first as a screenplay for Richard Burton, who wanted an action movie he could take his young son to see. If I recall correctly, three are in first person and three are in third person.

• When Eight Bells Toll
• Where Eagles Dare
• Force 10 From Navarone
• Puppet on a Chain
• Caravan to Vaccarès
• Bear Island

The final period is from 1973-1986. None of these books are in first person. His prose often sagged badly, with excessive dialogue, lazily described scenes, and poor characterization. Some of the books are better than others. I'll eventually slog my way through them all, I know.

• The Way to Dusty Death (review)
• Breakheart Pass
• Circus (review)
• The Golden Gate
• Seawitch
• Goodbye California
• Athabasca
• River of Death
• Partisans
• Floodgate
• San Andreas
• Santorini

Now that I've set the stage, here are two more reviews. Bro. No. 1 gave me a gift certificate to the used book store for Christmas, so a couple weeks ago I went on a spree and got about a dozen books. Among them were When Eight Bells Toll and Puppet on a Chain.

When Eight Bells Toll

I first read When Eight Bells Toll back in... high school, I think it was. Although it's from right in the middle of MacLean's writing continuum, it didn't stick with me at all. All I could remember that it had something to do with scuba diving and shipwrecks, and I got it mixed up with The Saint Overboard of all things! This is in complete contrast to Where Eagles Dare, The Guns of Navarone, and Ice Station Zebra, all of which I read in the same period, and which immediately earned five stars.

It concerns Philip Calvert, sent to investigate the disappearances of treasure ships, and the wrecks or disappearances of miscellaneous smaller craft, in the Irish Sea and off the west coast of Scotland. The development of the plot seems a bit nebulous to me, with Calvert making all sorts of investigative excursions by scuba, dinghy, foot, and even helicopter, but he seems to lack a definite plan of action.

MacLean is such a superlative plotter that I suspect this meandering is deliberate. To say that Calvert was being hindered by the criminal element is a gross understatement. It's hard to make plans when not only the rug but the entire floor is jerked from under your feet, repeatedly. Nonetheless, the story does come together with a rousing and rather dizzying amount of betrayal, coercion, and twists. Sometimes it is a good thing to seem incompetent... up to the very last second. It's just typical of MacLean that he fools the reader as well.

Calvert's tone is rather lacking in humor. The good guys take a lot of casualties in this one, and Calvert is clearly telling the story in past tense. There are a lot of things he has to be unhappy about. The action doesn't seem to build or be, frankly, all that exciting, although there's plenty of it in episodes throughout the story.

I have a great excerpt to quote this time. It's from slightly later in the story.

In the middle of the night, Calvert has been secretly landed on a small island off the west coast of Scotland, known to be the enemy base. He is on a short grass landing strip beside the private castle of the island's owner.

The strip was smooth and flat and I made good time without having to use the big rubber torch I had with me. I didn't dare use it anyway, not so close to the castle. There was no light to be seen from there but that was no guarantee that the ungodly weren't maintaining a sleepless watch on the battlements. If I were the ungodly, I'd have been maintaining a sleepless watch on the battlements. I stumbled over something warm and soft and alive and hit the ground hard.

My nerves weren't what they had been forty-eight hours ago and my reactions were comparatively fast. I had the knife in my hand and was on him before he could get to his feet. To his four feet. He had about him the pungent aroma of a refugee from Tim Hutchinson's flensing shed. Well might they say why stinks the goat on yonder hill who seems to dote on chlorophyll. I said a few conciliatory words to our four-footed friend and it seemed to work for he kept his horns to himself. I went on my way.

This humiliating sort of encounter, I'd noticed, never happened to the Errol Flynns of this world. Moreover, if Errol Flynn had been carrying a torch a little fall like that would not have smashed it. Had he been carrying only a candle it would still have kept burning brightly in the darkness. But not my torch. Not my rubber encased, rubber mounted bulb, plexiglass guaranteed unbreakable torch. It was kaput. I fished out the little pencil torch and tried it inside my jacket. I could have spared myself the caution, a glowworm would have sneered at it. I stuck it back in my pocket and kept going.

I didn't know how far I was from the precipitous end of the cliff and I'd no intention of finding out the hard way. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled forward, the glowworm leading the way. I reached the cliff edge in five minutes and found what I was looking for almost at once...

I heard a slight noise behind me. A moderately fit five-year-old grabbing me by the ankles could have had me over the edge with nothing I could do to prevent it. Or maybe it was Billy the Kid back to wreak vengeance for the rude interruption of his night's sleep. I swung around with torch and gun at the ready. It was Billy the Kid, his yellow eyes staring balefully out of the night. But his eyes belied him, he was just curious or friendly or both. I moved back slowly till I was out of butting range, patted him weakly on the head and left. At this rate I'd die of heart failure before the night was out.

Did you not enjoy that? This Philip Calvert, 1966 British agent, is written in deliberate and delicious contrast to fellow agent James Bond. *g*
 

Puppet on a Chain

I had poorer expectations of Puppet on a Chain. It was written just after the so-so Force 10 from Navarone and before Caravan to Vaccarés, which I also read only once many years ago and dimly recall as also being nebulous, although it had a great chase scene.  I think donkeys were involved... so was quicksand... *cough* I digress.

To my surprise, it was quite enjoyable, and actually caught and held my attention very well.  Paul Sherman, head of the Interpol narcotics department in London, travels to Amsterdam on business with two young women colleagues.  Maggie he has worked with for several years; Belinda is on loan from Interpol in Paris.  Their dialogue is great fun.

This light-hearted humorous tone is in uneasy conflict with the mentality of the opposition.  Sherman's up against some very unpleasant people, not merely nasty, but sick.  His plan of action reminds me of Sam Spade; that is, to charge in and provoke everyone in sight, and to survive and learn from the backlash.  This means he does a lot of tooling around Amsterdam and local countryside, meeting some interesting people and finding out some interesting things.

The flow of the story still doesn't seem to build to a climax like some of MacLean's earlier work, but I think it works better than When Eight Bells Toll in this respect.  Some parts are quite thrilling.  And one... well, there's a scene that's on of the most horrifying things I've ever read.  Not terrifying, not particularly gruesome, and certainly not explicit.  It's literally macabre.

That scene is difficult to shake off.  Sherman's narrative retains most of its witty flavor, but with a bitter cynicism that keeps anything from really being funny.  I suspect there's a mastery of language that I was too absorbed to analyze this time around.

I do not want to give the impression that Puppet on a Chain is a dark and depressing and sad book, however, because it's not.  The opposition just adds a nastier element to it.  The plot's not quite as complex as some, but that's appropriate, given the nature of the, um, illegal enterprise.  And there's still plenty of surprise and betrayal - great plot stuff.

Although I thought it was overall more humorous than When Eight Bells Toll, I had a much harder time finding a good quote.  Much of the humor is so integral to the plot that it cannot be quoted in

Upon arriving at his Amsterdam hotel, Sherman rapidly discovered that his identity and presence were no surprise to the ungodly. The entire hotel staff as well as a goodly percentage of passersby in the street maintained a wide-eyed innocence while jointly keeping tabs on him. Sherman is nonetheless not greatly perturbed. The roof and fire escape are always handy for an unannounced entrance or exit.

I parked the police car on top of a "No Parking" sign painted on the road and walked the last hundred yards to the hotel. The barrel organ had gone to wherever barrel organs go in the watches of the night, and the foyer was deserted except for the assistant manager who was sitting dozing in a chair behind the desk. I reached over, quietly unhooked the key and walked up the first two flights of stairs before taking the lift in case I waked the assistant manager from what appeared to be a sound--and no doubt well-deserved--sleep.

I took off my wet clothes--which meant all of them--showered, put on a dry outfit, went down by lift and banged my room key noisily on the desk. The assistant manager blinked himself awake, looked at me, his watch and the key in that order.

"Mr. Sherman. I--I didn't hear you come in."

"Hours ago. You were asleep. This quality of childlike innocence--"

He wasn't listening to me. For a second time he peered fuzzily at his watch.

"What are you doing, Mr. Sherman?"

"I am sleepwalking."

"It's half past two in the morning!"

"I don't sleepwalk during the day," I said reasonably. I turned and peered through the vestibule. "What? No doorman, no porter, no taxi man, no organ-grinder, not a tail or shadow in sight. Lax. Remiss. You will be held to account for this negligence."

"Please?"

"Eternal vigilance is the price of admiralty."

"I do not understand."

"I'm not sure I do either. Are there any barbers open at this time of night?"

"Are there any--did you say--"

"Never mind. I'm sure I'll find one somewhere."

I left. Twenty yards from the hotel I stepped into a doorway, cheerfully prepared to clobber any one who seemed bent on following me but after two or three minutes it became clear that no one was. I retrieved my car and drove down towards the docks area...

Needless to say, he had no need for a barber. :D (And come to think of it, his breezy conversational style reminds me an awful lot of Richard Diamond.)