Alistair Maclean

Alistair MacLean, the son of a Scots Minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands.

In 1941, at the age of eighteen, he joined the Royal Navy; two and a half years spent aboard a cruiser were to give him the background for ‘HMS Ulysses’, his first novel, the outstanding documentary novel on the war at sea.

After the war he gained an English Honours degree at Glasgow University, and became a schoolmaster. In 1983, he was awarded a D. Litt. from the same university.

Maclean is the author of twenty-nine world bestsellers and recognised as an outstanding writer in his own genre. Many of his titles have been adapted for film – ‘The Guns of the Navarone’, ‘Force Ten from Navarone’, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and ‘Bear Island’ are among the most famous. He died in 1987.

Lived: 1922 - 1987

Author Of

Athabasca

Two of the biggest oilfields in the world, one in Alaska, the other in Canada, are simultaneously threatened with sabotage. The oil flow could be interuupted in any one of thousands of places down the trans-Alaskan pipeline.

Bear Island

Bear Island, known as the wartime graveyard of the Arctic, where Nazi submarines lay in wait for the Murmansk convoys, is the setting for Alistair MacLean’s novel. As the charter ship Morning Rose sails through wintry seas towards the island, the doctor on board, Christopher Marlowe, is kept busy attending to his sea-sick patients –(…)

Caravan to Vaccares

From all over Europe – even from behind the Iron Curtain – the gypsies make their annual pilgrimage to Provence. The Duc de Croytor, distinguished folklorist and gastronome, is there, and so is Englishman Neil Bowman. But something is different about this year’s gathering. What is the secret the gypsies are so determined to hide?(…)

Circus

Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world’s greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East European regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man, and recruits Bruno for an impossible raid on the impregnable Lubylan fortress, where his family(…)

Fear is the Key

A classic novel of ruthless revenge set in the steel jungle of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico — and on the sea bed below it. Now reissued in a new cover style. A sunken DC-3 lying on the Caribbean floor. Its cargo: ten million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold(…)

Floodgate

Amsterdam Airport – the best in Europe – had disappeared. The wall of water was the work of FFF – an Irish terrorist group who want to force Britain’s hand.

Force Ten from Navarone

The thrilling sequel to Alistair MacLean’s masterpiece of World War II adventure, The Guns of Navarone. Now reissued in a new cover style. The guns of Navarone have been silenced, but the heroic survivors have no time to rest on their laurels. Almost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, Keith(…)

Goodbye California

Might someone have the motive – and the power – to trigger off an earthquake themselves? It is this possibility which Alistair MacLean took three years to research – and which forms the exciting and all-to-plausible theme to this book.

HMS Ulysses

The novel that launched the astonishing career of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of action and suspense — an acclaimed classic of heroism and the sea in World War II. Now reissued in a new cover style. The story of men who rose to heroism, and then to something greater, HMS Ulysses takes(…)

Ice Station Zebra

The Dolphin, pride of America’s nuclear fleet, is the only submarine capable of attempting the rescue of a British meteorological team trapped on the polar ice cap. The officers of the Dolphin know well the hazards of such an assignment. What they do not know is that the rescue attempt is really a cover-up for(…)

The Guns of Navarone

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 only the guns could be silenced. The guns of Navarone, vigilant, savage and catastrophically accurate. Navarone itself, grim bastion of narrow straits manned by a mixed(…)

Night Without End

An airliner crashes in the Polar ice-cap. In temperatures 40 degrees below zero, six men and four women survive. But for the members of a remote research station who rescue them, there are some sinister questions to answer – the first one being, who shot the pilot before the crash?

Partisans

During World War II, Yugoslavian rebel forces struggle to resist the German occupation, even as a three-way civil war tears the nation apart. In the mist of this terrible confusion, three compatriots set out across their besieged country to relay the German battle plan and unmask a double agent. But where do their loyalties really lie? On this(…)

Puppet on a Chain

Paul Sherman of Interpol’s Narcotics Bureau make a big mistake when he landed at Schiphol Airport believing that no one but Jimmy Duclos knew of his arrival in Amsterdam. Sherman had to realise that the gang of heroin smugglers he was out to smash knew his movements as well as he did.

River of Death

An expedition searching for a legendary lost city in South America discovers a Nazi reunion, a river of death, a scheme of revenge, and other terrifying surprises.

San Andreas

Set aboard the British hospital ship San Andreas en route from Halifax to Aberdeen during World War II. The first sign of trouble on board occurs when the ship’s lights fail just before dawn. Then the vessel comes under a bombing attack that severely damages its superstructure and sinks its escort frigate. Bo’s’n Archie McKinnon(…)

Santorini

The frigate Ariadne, fitted with sophisticated electronic equipment, patrols the Aegean Sea. Her official mission is to carry out a hydrographic survey. Unofficially, she is the eyes and ears of NATO – a spy ship.

Seawitch

An enormous, sophisticated, moble oil rig called the Seawitch, anchored off the American coast in the Gulf.. It is owned by a billionaire named Lord Worth – a maverick oil tycoon who’s out to beat the big companies at their own game. Technologically very advanced, the Seawitch can supply him with enought cheap oil to(…)

Tabor do Vaccares

Could this book be Caravan to Vaccares. Unable to find Tabor do Vaccares.

The Dark Crusader (The Black Shrike)

Eight job advertisements. Eight jobs. Eight specialists in modern technology required.Eight scientists to fill them. Applicants to be married, with no children, and prepared to travel. Highly persuasive salaries.One criminal mastermind. Eight positions filled. Eight scientists – and their wives – disappear. Completely.One secret agent to stop him. Advertisement no.9. Sydney, Australia. Fuel specialist required.(…)

The Golden Gate

A ROLLING FOR KNOX is how the journalists describe the Presidential motorcade as it enters San Francisco across the Golden Gate. Even the ever-watchful FBI believe it is impregnable – as it has to be with the President and two Arab potentates aboard But halfway across the bridge the unthinkable happens. Before the eyes of(…)

The Golden Rendezvous

Aboard the SS Campari, all is not well.For Johnny Carter, the Chief Officer, the voyage has already begun badly; but it’s only when the Campari sails that evening, after a succession of delays that he realises something is seriously wrong.A member of the crew is suddenly missing and the stern-to-stern search only serves to increase(…)

South by Java Head

February, 1942: Singapore lay burning and shattered, defenseless before the conquering hordes of Japanese, as the last boat slipped out of the harbor into the South China Sea. On board were a desperate group of people, each with a secret to guard, each willing to kill to keep that secret safe. Who or what was(…)

The Last Frontier (The Secret Ways)

An undercover mission beyond the Iron Curtain to recover a defected scientist goes disastrously wrong — a classic early Cold War thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Now reissued in a new cover style. Michael Reynolds was going insane … slowly but inevitably insane. And the most terrible part of it was(…)

The Lonely Sea and Other Short Stories

Collection of riveting tales of the sea including the story that launched his writing career, the account of the epic battle to sink the German battle ship, Bismarck, and two new stories collected here for the first time.

The Satan Bug

HELL IS ABOUT TO BE UNLEASHED… Five strands of high-voltage wire, 200 yards of bare ground and double barbed wire fences patrolled by armed guards with dogs separated Mordon Research Centre from the outside world. Yet behind the locked doors of E block, a scientist lies dead, and a new toxin of terrifying power has(…)

The Way to Dusty Death

Johnny Harlow, a world champion racing driver, realises after being involved in yet another crash on the circuit that there have been too many accidents on the racetrack lately. He decides to investigate but soon finds out that a few people don’t want him to know the truth. He continues to stalk his prey and(…)

When Eight Bells Toll

Millions of pounds in gold bullion are being pirated in the Irish Sea. Investigations by the British Secret Service, and a sixth sense, have bought Philip Calvert to a bleak, lonely bay in the Western Highlands. But the sleepy atmosphere of Torbay is deceptive. The place is the focal point of many mysterious disappearances. Even(…)

Where Eagles Dare

A team of British Special Forces commandos parachutes into the high peaks of the Austrian Alps with the mission of stealing into an invulnerable alpine castle-accessible only by aerial gondola-the headquarters of Nazi intelligence. Supposedly sent in to rescue one of their own, their real mission turns out to be a lot more complicated-and the(…)

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