Customer Reviews

The Keys of Hell (Charnwood Library)

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

 

 

Jack Higgins has certainly given us another of his high-powered action thrillers. The pace is so quick, the plot twists like a snake, the writing is taut and to the point. All good things.

However, even though the characters are likeable, they are not parituclarly developed. That, I feel, is often Higgins's letdown. He gets so wrapped up in the action that he forgets to give his characters deep personalities. Instead, we just see snapshots of people who, really, could be any hero from any thriller novel. All he really does is gives his characters names and then inserts those names into the story. The characters are just there to keep the plot moving along. The problem is that practically all the people in this novel are interchangeable with those of another. For example, Chevasse shares almost exactly the same personality traits as Sean Dillon. As does Liri, who is Jack Higgins's typical lead woman. they are all the same, in all his novels. Their names and pasts just change.

That said, this is still a very good book. The pace never lets up, it's a pageturner and it's quick. If you like a good action thriller and don't particulalry mind about characters, then this is the book for you. (Even if the margins on the English edition are ridiculously big.)

At First, I didn't think I would like this book. But I kept an open mind . This book had the best plot twists I have ever read in a Jack Higgins novel in a long time. Chavesse is no Sean Dillion but is a close second. Take time explore this book you won't be sorry.

A truly great espionage thriller by the New York times' best selling author. Mr. Higgins is in top form. He never disapoints and this new thriller shows you how he keeps you guessing until the end.

There's an Albanian proverb that is quoted in the beginning of this book that says that there are no keys to hell, that the doors are open to all men. Well, someone here left the doors open all right, but left the lights out. Don't get me wrong, Jack Higgins is one of the grand old men of suspense. Anyone who has ever read "The Eagle Has Landed" or some of his other novels under the Harry Patterson monicker ("The Valhalla Exchange" comes to mind) knows whereof what I speak. But here, Sir Jack seems to be just writing on automatic pilot.

The premise is there: The search for a legendary religious icon, the Madonna of Scutari. It's just that Higgins never completely drives home the point as to why agent provacateur Paul Chavasse would want to pursue this quest. Is it because the girl he almost put the moves on at a party is involved or does he actually care about religious resurrgence in Albania? Remember, when he's not saving Brittania, this guy also deals with Mafia dons.

Higgins, still the master at characterization and action (hence the two stars), does leave part of his thought process on the perverbial floor. While in the fog, Chavasse has the drop put on him by a couple of the bad guys. He's told to stand very still while he is checked for weapons and then he is instructed to "walk straight ahead and don't look round". As he is told by his captor that it would "desolate" him to kill him, it's only then that Chavasse realizes that his captor is speaking Albanian. Only then, Paul?

Jack has done it again, with a different hero. Higgins proves that no matter how pretty the rose is it still has thorns.

Another tour de force to be reckoned with. A first rate thriller by the author of The Eagle Has Landed.

I think others should read this book, but only if you like war and drugs and things like that. This book is a real good book because of the way they use the language and images are almost real clear. It's about an undercover cop who try's to get rescue the sectaries daughter, from a drug lord who holds her for ransom. The worst aspect of this book is that it corresponds with drugs. Some times the book bounces around from the past to the present and just changes when ever.

The book starts off just like another book written by the author - only different names are used. The scenario, however is very much the same as one of Sean's novels. I like Higgins' books and have gone back and purchased every one in the Sean Dillon series. I felt cheated with this book when I noticed the Locations (pages?) only went to 2168 instead of >5000. It's more like the short stories that I pay 0.99 for. Anyway, it was a decent read if you don't have anything else to do but I felt like I was re-reading a book previously written for other characters.

This is one of Jack Higgins early books - published prior to "The Eagle Has Landed". The story
involves a British secret agent who is trying to recover a lost artifact but complications arise
due to double agents, etc. The story is fast paced and exciting. Although some parts of the story
are hard to believe Higgins does a good job of weaving all the elements together.
The story is very similar to another Jack Higgins book entitled "The Khufra Run" - the book was
originally published under the pseudonym James Graham.

The Keys Of Hell is an unabridged, action-packed audiobook thriller by Jack Higgins and features super-spy Paul Chevasse on a high-risk mission to find and take out a double agent in the isolated republic of Albania. But someone has set a deadly trap for him - someone who holds the "keys of hell" - and completing his mission will take far more than a cool head and cold blood. Skillfully narrated by twenty-year career British theater and radio play actor Christian Rodska, The Keys Of Hell is an tale so engrossing that listening to it makes time fly -- and leads to an eager expectation of the next New Millennium Audio edition of a Jack Higgins thriller. 4 hours, 4 cassettes.