Customer Reviews

Floodgate

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Formulaic MacLean story. Starts with Amsterdam airoport flooded, as a way of getting the readers' attention, moves to further floods (dikes blasted) in the Netherlands and threats of even more, as a way of drawing attention to the terrorists' demands. The hero is a typical MacLean hero, just a little too good, fluent in languages, explosives, criminal behaiviour, organisation, self-confidence, yet still not the top man in his organisation (the Amsterdam police force); a natural gentleman, concerned for and afraid of his sister. The ladies in the novel are simply the most beautiful available or imaginable; and perfect ladies. The government figures are, except for one, dolts and incapable of understanding a simple statement. The terrorists are, in this case, fighting for a worthy ulitmate cause, though their methods are to be despised and themselves destroyed. Just happens, though, that the leader is a son of an English earl and, in his own way, to be pitied also. It is as though MacLean got tired of writing, towards the end of his career, the original, inventive, and clever plots such as "H.M.S. Ulysses" and "The Guns of Navarone" and instead took the most successful portions of some of his other tales and fit them into a basic plot outline. Sad to say about MacLean, whom i loved at one stage in my life, reading everything i could find of his, but this is nowhere near his peak ability.

My brother and I first discovered this book lying around the house years ago, and to this day we still pick it up every now and then, read it from cover to cover, and enjoy it immensely. The plot is interesting, the writing is witty, and the characters are engaging, especially Lieutenant Peter van Effen, with his many talents and his decrepit car, and his rather fuzzy-minded boss, the Chief of Police de Graaf. As another reviewer mentioned, the book ends on a calmer note than one would expect, but it doesn't disappoint. And my brother and I still put it down thoroughly satisfied every time.

Another great detective novel by the master! Probably one of his best works. The suspense in the book picks up from the first page and does not leave until the very end. The action is mostly fast-paced, but slows down in some places. The book's end is unexpected in a manner that the reader of a suspense novel expects a shart teist of plot at the end, but it never comes and the book ends on a rather calm note. The main hero is, as usual, a very heroic character, occupied by a beautiful woman who is full of love for him, a love that becomes mutual at the end... Over all the book is a typical MacLean story.

Maclean's later novels were nowhere near the quality of his early ones, and unfortunately 'Floodgate' is no exception. The heart-pounding action of his classic work is nowhere to be seen. Instead, the protagonists are reactive and passive, and seem to spend most of their time sitting around drinking schnapps. A key plot point involves our hero infiltrating the villians' organisation, largely reducing him to the role of observer. He just sits around and waits for the villians to make their move, then overpowers them with little difficulty. No drama, no tension, no action. In fact, although my copy of the book runs past 300 pages, very little of anything actually happens throughout most of the book. Most of the space is taken up with talking, planning, or endlessly repeating how catastrophic the result would be if the villian succeeded.

The problem with these sorts of 'catastrophic' threats is that there's no possibility of them being successful. In Maclean's early books, the threats were often targeted and specific: it's not the end of the world if the hero's ship is sunk in wartime, or gold is stolen, or secret plans fall to the Russians, or a killer remains undiscovered. The possibility of the villian getting away with it sets up the tension and excitement in these books, forcing the hero to push himself to the limit to defeat him. But there's almost no chance of Holland being flooded, or California falling into the ocean, or the Golden Gate Bridge being blown up. The tension just isn't there because we know the villians' threats could never be carried out.

If the boring, talky nature of the book weren't bad enough, it seems Maclean has gone back into 'Last Frontier' mode here. What little momentum the book has is stifled as characters lecture us on how terrible the war in Northern Ireland is, and the responsibility rests on our shoulders, and we can change it for the better, etc, etc. At least 'The Last Frontier' had some good action scenes to compensate....

In all, 'Floodgate' is yet another of his sub-par books from the late 70's and 80's, and a considerable disappointment.

Amsterdam Airport - the best in Europe - is flooded. Some planes are still floating aimlessly around. Some have sunk out of sight their tail-planes sticking up above the water, scattered at random over a large area of the airfield. The wall of water was the work of the terrorist movement FFF - an Irish organisation who want to force Britain's hand. Detective Lieutenant van Effen is called in, a feared interrogator and undercover intimate of the criminal Krakers gang to sabotage the FFF plan. If van Effen fails and the FFF get control over the vital dyke, either Holland will sink beneath the sea or Britain will be awash with blood.