Customer Reviews

Devil's Alternative

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When catasthrophe hit the grain harvest of the Soviet Union, the Politburo must decide whether to negotiate with the West for grains, or go to war, or suffer mass uprising. No one in the Kremlin wants the last possibility to happen, so two factions emerged, with the bare majority, including the Secretary-General, advocating negotiation. Through a Kremlin informant for British agent Adam Munro, the British PM and the US President learned just how desperate the situation in the USSR was.

Meanwhile, the survivor of a shipwreck in the Mediterranean aroused the interest of a British Andrew Drake. Drake descended from a Ukrainian nationlist, whose mission in life was to strike a humiliating blow against the USSR, and the shipwreck survivor provided him with an opportunity to do just that.

Somehow, the different threads spun by the author in the book came together, climaxing with the world being held hostage to an all-out war between the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc, or the greatest environmental catasthrophy yet.

The author did not stint on fleshing out his characters, providing them with ample description, motivations and attributes that the reader can just imagine the kind of actors and actresses that would be cast if this was a movie.

Plot development were fast and furious sometimes, yet deliberately slow and detailed at others, paced out well like the different variations of a symphony, but never a dull moment.

In the end, it will be up to our hero Adam Munro to save the world from the various catasthrophies, and the numerous twists in the end came round a blind corner, hitting the readers where they least expect (unless of course, they've been reading way too much thrillers like me who managed to guess a couple of them).

Another solid job by this author who I have always liked. This was another of his fast paced, easy to read stories with a good long story. I love the detail of the USSR government, you really feel like it in a non-fiction book at times. He has always used a lot of good factual details to make his books solid. Like the work of all good authors, you really grow to know the characters, like some and hate some - they have solid reasons for doing what they are doing in the book. There is a lot going on but the way he writes it you do not have any problems following the action. A great book that is well worth the time.

The Devil's Alternative is one of the finest thrillers ever written. In my opinion it ranks with The Negotiator as the best novels by Forsyth. What makes this book great is the realism. Forsyth knows his stuff, and has done a perfect job of researching the Halls of Power on both sides of the ocean. His depiction of the Soviet Politburo in action is one of the best representations in all of fiction. His use of technology (the tanker, etc.) is well done, with no inaccuracies. [Although it should be noted that the largest oil tanker in the world is the Jahre Viking, which is half the size of the Freya in the book] The characters, unlike most other thrillers, are not your everyday stock characters. Forsyth gives them a personality. The ending of this multi-layered thriller is also a gem, and no other author could have written such a perfect book.

There's no doubt about it. Frederick Forsyth knows how to spin a yarn. This international thriller takes the reader on a roller coaster ride that doesn't stop until the very last page.
If, as many believe, The Day of the Jackal is the greatest novel of international intrigue ever written, The Devil's Alternative cannot be far behind.
Maxim Rudin is the President of the USSR and General Secretary of the Communist Party. He's having a very bad year. Not only is his health failing but his country faces an impending famine. His enemies within the Politburo are plotting to oust him from power even as a group of Ukrainian nationalists plan murder and mayhem to embarrass the regime. The US President, Bill Matthews, has come to the realization that only a massive infusion of American grain can prevent a starving Soviet Union from starting World War III.
Superimposed on this backdrop are a number of other interesting subplots. These include a forbidden romance between a British intelligence officer and a Russian woman and the maiden voyage of the largest oil tanker the world has ever seen.
Forsyth seamlessly weaves together all plot elements in a way that captures the reader's imagination and holds it at gunpoint. Throughout the book, there are a number of genuinely surprising twists which are really quite remarkable to behold.
The meticulous attention to detail that characterizes all of Forsyth's writing is very much alive and well here. It's hard to imagine the scope and depth of research that went into bringing this book to life.
The Devil's Alternative is a monumental achievement. Highly recommended.

I have enjoyed most of Forsyth's novels, and I found The Devil's Alternative to be even better than The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File, the books Forsyth is probably most known for. The plot and the multiple threads being woven together in The Devil's Alternative have been taken up a notch by comparison; a bit slow at first perhaps but well worth the wait by the end. It was fun to read this considering that it was written in 1979-1980. The American President in the book, William Matthews, was clearly modeled after Jimmy Carter; likewise, his hawkish National Security Adviser, Stanislaw Poklewski, reflects Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter's NSC man) while the more dovish Secretary of State David Lawrence reflects Cyrus Vance (Carter's main Sec/State). And there's a Margaret Thatcher-esque Prime Minister in Britain as well. Forsyth was prescient with the issues in the book too - there's arms reductions talks and grain and technology transfers going on between the superpowers - plus the idea of nationalism behind the Iron Curtain being a force in the decline of the Soviet Union. But that's only part of what's going on in this book; add a power play within the Politburo, classic Moscow espionage, a sophisticated amateur operation against the Soviet Union, and the largest oil tanker known to man, and Forsyth spins a great tale in The Devil's Alternative.

It's the early eighties and group of radical Ukranian nationalists have a debt to settle as The Soviet Union is facing a possible famine. After a Ukranian nationalist is found barely alive floating in the black sea, the stage is set for a plot which involves numerous european countries as well as the US and Israel.

The character development in this novel is excellent. Frederick Forsyth has a way of bringing out the personalities of the main characters very well. His knowledge of geography really shows that he does his research before he writes. I like the way the book goes from one country to another carefully discribing what is going on but not always telling the reader how it's related to the plot until later. There are quite a few surprising moments which keep your attention. There are points were you may think the story is going nowhere and then there is an abrupt change of pace with no warning.

It is books like this that can turn one into an avid reader of espionage novels.

After turning spy fiction upside down with his first three novels, Frederick Forsyth took a lengthy breather before returning with this, his first foray into geopolitics. While dated in some ways with its Iron Curtain setting and talk of Ukrainian liberation, "The Devil's Alternative" remains a clever, fast-paced return to form by the then-young master.

As a grain mishap threatens the U.S.S.R. with famine, a British operative is contacted by a former lover who has access to transcripts of secret Politburo meetings. While U.S. and British leaders deliberate over their volatile contents, a Ukrainian partisan brings the emerging crisis to a flashpoint by hijacking the world's largest tanker just off Amsterdam.

What's missing in "The Devil's Alternative" is a compelling central narrative. Not that what's here isn't compelling, but unlike the earlier Forsyth novels, there isn't one clear lead character to follow. Adam Munro, the British agent in Moscow, comes closest, but his is but one of three stories Forsyth the ringmaster puts in front of us, and Munro is not present in the two most dramatic parts, that being the hijacking of the Freya and the deliberations in the Politburo as the premier tries to fend off a power grab by zealots bent on starting World War III.

This might disorient some looking for a more straightforward thriller, but what's here is good, solid spycraft, nicely layered with Forsyth's attention to detail. The Politburo material is especially terrific, even if it consists largely of talking heads and shuffling papers. Forsyth finds that believable level of real human tension in every situation.

"The Devil's Alternative" is very much a product of its time, pre-Reagan and the "Evil Empire" speech. The focus of President Matthews, a thinly-veiled Jimmy Carter, and his mostly dovish cabinet is to keep the peace with the USSR, even if it means giving the Russians millions of tons of grain in return for hollow arms concessions. Forsyth, who is sometimes described as politically to the right of Attila the Hun, demonstrates a surprising friendliness to this realpolitik-lite approach, though he may just be making his points in more subtle ways.

Forsyth's acerbic insight into the motivations of the central players is mercilessly acute: "In his time he had learned that, in principle, politicians have little enough objection to loss of life, provided that they personally cannot be seen publicly to have had anything to do with it."

This may also be the best book in demonstrating Forsyth's cleverness with storyline. Time and again, he sets the reader up for one action and then delivers another. Even when you expect a twist, Forsyth's way of delivering them is breathtaking. Bear down especially with the last chapter, as Forsyth turns over cards you didn't even know he was playing.

There are logic gaps, as other reviewers note, and the story drags a bit more than it should at the beginning. But those who keep reading will be amply rewarded. "The Devil's Alternative" is a good alternative to nearly any thriller published today.

This book is one of the best I have ever read. Forsyth tells his tale with such skill, that you almost believe the story is real. He has such a grasp on international politics and secret services, and such a masterful command of the storytelling art, that you have to page through this book no matter what other things you should actually be doing.

The suspense is rather high, and the story very complex without becoming either convulted or impossible. READ IT !

"The Devil's Alternative" is a spy thriller from the end of the 1970's. The story pits the Russian leader (modeled somewhat on Leonid Brezhnev) against the American President (modeled somewhat on Lyndon Johnson) in a world crisis situation. At the same time the story is very European in that it is the British who just happen to have a spy with access to the Russian Politburo meetings. Also, most of the scenes that do not take place in the White House or the Kremlin take place in Europe.

The story is very exciting, although somewhat unrealistic. As usual, the good guys are trying to prevent World War III while the "hawks" in both the Kremlin and the White House can hardly wait to get going. The ending is somewhat contrived but on the whole the book is a very good read.

For someone reading this book nowadays it seems rather dated because of the huge changes in the world political and military situation since the 1970's. This can be considered either negative or positive depending on whether you are interested in the history of this era.

The differences between then and now are amazing. At that time the Soviet Union and Russia were a world superpower. Eastern Europe was communist, Germany was divided, and West Berlin was an isolated non-communist island in communist East Germany. The major political and military conflict in the world was the efforts of the communist countries to try to convert the whole world to communism and the efforts of the non-communist countries to prevent this from happening.

All of the above facts play a major role in this story, so an understanding of the situation then being different from the situation now is brought forcefully home to the reader.

There is an interesting passage in "The Devil's Alternative": "One day, maybe not too long from now, the Russian empire will begin to crack. One day soon, the Romanians will exercise their patriotism, and the Poles and Czechs. Followed by the Germans and Hungarians. And the Balts and Ukrainians, the Georgians and Armenians. The Russian empire will crack and crumble, the way the Roman and British empires cracked, because at last the arrogance of their mandarins became insufferable." (Page 410 in the paperback edition I read.)

Was Frederick Forsyth perceptive in writing this, or just lucky? My memory of that era is that not many people would have agreed with that prediction at that time.

What about the plot? In a book like "The Devil's Alternative" the plot is not so important - it is a vehicle for the characters to play out their conflict, and Frederick Forsyth is good at creating interesting characters who play out an interesting conflict.

Some parts of the story are somewhat unrealistic. In particular, the ending is rather contrived and some of the technical details about the fictitious world's largest supertanker strike me as very improbable. It is because of these various problems with the realism that I'm giving "The Devil's Alternative" four stars instead of five.

But for the most part the story is realistic enough for us to suspend our disbelief and let ourselves get excited, and even scared of the possible consequences of things going wrong. That's what makes this one of Frederick Forsyth's better books, and I can recommended it, especially if you want to relive the world political and military situation at the height of the cold war.

Rennie Petersen

This is one of the best books i've ever read. It simply surpasses the class which was shown by foresyth in 'The Day of the Jackal' and 'The Odessa File'. Slow to start with, this gets exciting with every page. I would say one hasn't read the book till he has read the last page. The amount of research on diffent topics, geography and espionage world put by foresyth is simply amazing. The Climax is mind boggling. A must read for all espionage literature fans