Customer Reviews

Partisans

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MacLean delivers another fun adventure in this 1983 yarn about a World War II espionage mission. Pete Peterson and his motley crew of maybe-Chetniks maybe-Partisans cross Italy and Yugoslavia to deliver a message and unmask a double agent. The characters are MacLean classics: beautiful patrician women, evil assassins, stalwart companions, and a glib and brilliant hero. The plot meanders through the confusion of Yugoslavia's three-way civil war while under Italian and German occupation. A fun adventure, a light read, a real Alistair MacLean classic.

"Partisans" is one of those disappointing adventure novels that build up a nice head of steam before crashing into a wall.

During World War II, a Yugoslavian agent under apparent German command takes a team of compatriots deep into his native country, where Italian, German, and their Cetnik "allies" watch each other as suspiciously as they do their Partisans foes. The agent, Petersen, has a message to deliver, though what that message is and who he has to deliver it to is a mystery.

What makes "Partisans" enjoyable is the leisurely way it begins, with much circuitous banter and some dark doings on darkened city streets and aboard an Italian torpedo boat. You know Petersen can't be working for the Nazis, but what about those with him? Who can he trust? Who can we trust? One settles in expecting a variant of the commando tales MacLean famously presented in such books as "The Guns Of Navarone" and "Where Eagles Dare," though laced with a welcome sardonic edge courtesy of Petersen.

Agreeing an attempted assassination against them was committed by amateurs, Petersen adds: "But the effect of an amateur bullet can be just as permanent as a professional one."

Or take his impression of an Italian officer he meets: "He's reasonable, personable, smiling, open-faced, has a firm handshake and looks you straight in the eye - anyone can tell at once that he's a member of the criminal classes."

As the novel goes on, you begin to realize it isn't going anywhere, that the banter is all you will get. The plot advances only because Petersen and his group keep getting captured by various forces who then leave them unharmed, which Petersen explains is part of his mysterious plan. A rotund pal drinks alcohol by the quart, while another keeps a strange, surly silence. A couple of women along for the trip call Petersen a "monster," then break into tears over such things as having to ride a pony over a mountain.

More annoyingly, one never is able to work out what Petersen is up to until the end of the novel, at which point he explains it all to you and his comrades in such a roundabout way none of it makes much sense.

Maybe he was having a poke at the au currant thrillers of the time. When "Partisans" was published in 1983, MacLean was struggling with a form of novel he helped popularize but which had been picked up by more sophisticated writers like Frederick Forsyth and Ken Follett, who jammed labyrinthine storylines into books twice as large as MacLean's. Of course, MacLean's simpler stories could be quite wonderful, too, but here we are handed a plot so convoluted no one could understand it. Even the flap jacket for the original hardcover describes a story with little resemblance to what's in the book.

That's a shame, because "Partisans" has the makings of a good tale, with interesting characters and a charged background of multiple, conflicting loyalties running riot in an exotic locale. MacLean throws a lot of plates in the air, and you wonder how he is going to get them all down. Then he surprises you by letting them crash to the floor.

While not quite plumbing the depths of the awful 'Goodbye California' or the boring 'Santorini', it's fair to say that 'Partisans' is one of Maclean's weakest books, and yet another example of his late-career decline. Despite returning to WW2, where some of his classic works were set, Maclean just cannot capture the magic this time around. Unlike his taut, fast-paced early thrillers, this a very loose, lightweight book that goes nowhere. It's the sort of book that's instantly forgettable; it's easy enough to read, but leaves no impression whatsoever once you've finished it. Years on, I still vividly remember the heart-pounding climaxes to 'The Satan Bug', or 'Fear Is The Key', or 'Puppet On A Chain'. But almost nothing sticks in my mind from 'Partisans', apart from an interesting torture scene involving a lethal injection, and the fact that everybody changes sides at least twice.

All the usual late-career Maclean flaws are here. The impossibly brave and capable hero Peter Petersen, the "heroines" who are actually utterly clueless damsels in distress, the clumsily handled "no-one is really who they seem" plot twists. Despite being set in wartime Yugoslavia, the book is very talky and slow moving, with almost no action at all. In fact, very little of interest happens at all throughout the book, it's mostly the characters trading one-liners and complaining about being left in the dark by Petersen. There's certainly no sense of the bigger picture of the fate of Yugoslavia and the progress of the war itself.

'Partisans' is not a "bad" book in the way 'Goodbye California' was, and it's readable enough. But it's nowhere near what Maclean was capable of, and will be a huge disappointment to fans of his early work. Newcomers should stick to his 50's and 60's stuff, and leave this one alone.

Major Peter Petersen is sent to deliver a message in Alistair MacLean's PARTISANS, but suspicion is the vital element that insures survival in the deadly game of espionage during any war. The questions is who is being set-up and for what reason, but then who is connect to whom by what ties.
MacLean delivers an excellent adventure where Petersen is never sure until the last chapter who he can trust and who has more than life at stake.
A good read at any time.
Nash Black, author of QUALIFYING LAPS.

For a novel about a very dirty, ugly conflict in WWII - this book is strangely woven with a humorous thread. It could have been so much more - oh well. Not recommended. Read Circus or Guns.

Alistair MacLean is my favorite novelist. Yes, I am a Christian, but he surpasses my favorite Christian novelists Frank Peretti and Randy Singer. I will say Singer has the potential of surpassing MacLean; at present, I've only read one of his. But for an enjoyable reading that I feel will be of minimal offense to me, nobody can beat MacLean, even with his weaker material.

When I read the blurb on the back of this novel, I was very interested; the novel did not resemble that blurb, but seemed more like a run of the mill MacLean novel (particularly one of his later stories).

This story is one of those where he introduces you to a group of interesting characters, and then you find out who they really are at the end. "Where Eagles Dare" and "Breakheart Pass" do an excellent job at this, and even the novel immediately proceeding this one, "River Of Death", does a better job. The wrap up of this one is disappointing, though I like the closing better than some of MacLean's.

This novel is, like many of MacLean's other (and better) novels, is based during World War II. This one is unique in its focus on Yugoslavia. I found it interesting that MacLean had written Cold War novels, where Communism is the bad guy, but this one actually looks at Communist Tito as a hero.

In reading the reviews of MacLean's "River Of Death", there is a mention of MacLean's battle with alcoholism, which I never knew before. However, in noticing how some of his protagonists drink a lot without any negative consequences, such as the Professor in this novel, I'm not surprised.

If you want to read MacLean at his best, I would recommend "Where Eagles Dare", "The Guns Of Navarone", "Breakheart Pass", and "Circus". However, if you enjoy MacLean, even in his "frozen dinner" years (which is how Stephen King describes his latter novels in "Danse Macrabe"), then you will enjoy this as well.

You wouldn't think an action novel about Yugoslavia's brutal World War II occupation could sound like a drawing room comedy, but that's exactly what this is.

Nazis and Italians occupy while the Communist Partisans, the Serb royalist Chetniks and the Croatian fascist Ustashe fight among each other, jockeying for postwar position as they try to wipe each other out. The Allies wonder which resistance horse to back. Everyone's loyalties are uncertain.

Despite all this potential for action, three enigmatic Serbs escorting a mysterious crew into Yugoslavia on a nebulous mission do little but talk and talk and talk. They fence around their trust of one another as they make their interminable way into the frozen mountains.

The Yugoslavs come off way too tweedy for folks who should be smashing glasses into a fireplace or reciting fatalistic Slav poetry. Maclean pays endless attention to their meals and sleeping arrangements and it's all so civilized. Doesn't he know there's a war on?

He tries to build tension over the two ladies' regarding mission chief Peter Petersen as Not A Nice Man, with the readers presumably wondering same. It's all rather ludicrous. Petersen's subtle inferences about the others come off sounding too much like Agatha Christie for a World War II commando leader.

Maclean pays lip service to the war's actual brutality. In his genteel war, people are tied up and gagged. Clever threats break hardened operatives in minutes without torture. Action consists mostly of, uh, fisticuffs, and hardly anyone gets hurt. Would that World War II had actually been like this, but verisimilitude, it ain't.

Maclean doesn't plot it badly, ultimately addressing the complexity of this multi-sided war. He doesn't, however, introduce it soon enough, not until the last few chapters and even as it's being resolved. Before that, the book seems like a literary journey to nowhere.

This is the weakest book of his I have read, and that is about thirty MacLean novels. I understand that he passed away prior to this book being published and that is was compiled posthumously. While admittedly not all of his books are great, I don't feel this is up to snuff with any of the others. Don't make this your first MacLean book and unless you feel the desire to read every one of his books like I choose to, take a pass on it. I am unwilling to touch any of the Alistair MacNeill books written using MacLeans notecards because I feel those are apt to be pretty weak too, and no one ever seems to duplicate the originals. If you are going to give a couple of MacLean novels a try, go for "Where Eagles Dare", "Puppet on a Chain", "Bear Island", & "Ice Station Zebra".

I wrote in recent reviews of Mankell and Leon mysteries that, after reading Sherlock Holmes and Helen McInnes, I had avoided mysteries altogether for many years, too boring. I had forgotten about Alistair McLean. I did read a few of his stories, and liked them, but I didn't read the famous ones and have forgotten exactly which stories I had liked (it was in the seventies, at latest). "Puppet on a Chain" sounds familiar.

I picked up the Norwegian translation ("Partisaner") of "Partisans" cheaply in Trondheim in 1985 because I thought it might be easy, but my vocabulary at that time was inadequate for a novel, so I strained over the first 15 pages and then gave up. I read the first few pages again last night, and was amazed that I had marked a few sentences: in response to why the Scandinavian name "Petersen" (the name of the hero) is found in Jugoslavia, Petersen responds to the German officer in Rome that that can't be regarded as unusual, that there is, e.g., a village in the Italian Alps where the rest of a Scottish regiment landed in the Middle Ages, and where every second name starts with "Mac". What's funny is that I forgot that I had read this, but in 1/1988, with my then German girlfriend, we visited that village! It's named Gurro, lies in Val Canobino above Cannobio on Lago Maggiorre. They have a Scottish museum, and many of the men have red hair and faces. I didn't ask about surnames, though, although we returned to the village (an extremely stately mountain village half in ruin in 1988) and hiked in the region in 1995. Much more interesting is that this is a region where the old women still wear local costumes and use the kraxe (a wooden back-rack) for transport in daily life. There is only one hotel in the entire valley, which is not a valley at all but is more of a canyon. PS It's not a good translation, I still have trouble with it.

i am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this timei am just trying if it works this time