Customer Reviews

Storm Force from Navarone

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

 

 

I have read this book several times, after noticing it in a book shop, the title Navarone caught my eye, as I realised Alistair McLean is actually dead. Sam LLewelyn has carried on the adventures of Captain Keith Mallory, Dusty Miller, and Andrea Stavros of the SOE, through another European theatre of war, the pyrenees of France and Spain, it naturally led on from Force 10, set in Yugoslavia, into another mission, this time to track down two 'Wulfe' (Wolf) class German submarines, damaged by allied bombs and subsequently taking refuge in supposedly neutral Spain and the SOE team's job to destroy them. The adventure that ensued is probably the closest anyone could get to Mclean's style of writing, the characters were brought back to life and the plot as intelligently thought out as McLean's. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am currently trying to find a new copy as mine was stolen. I believe that any McLean fan would enjoy this story as much as the originals.

It is not the actual writing style, although it tends to flucuate from basic description to quite pleasing prose.

It is the terrible, ill-thought and basically lazy way that the author throws Maclean's characters into the fire and then extracts them.

An elementary school would have better resolutions to the complications throughout this narrative.

Several enemy characters are simply introduced to present a physical challenge for Andrea who without sleep for more than 48hrs, suffering a stab wound from an earlier altercation and at äbsolute exhaustion for the tenth time, dispathches them in two sentences. Sentence one he appears out of nowhere. Sentence two he kills the enemy while grabbing the arm/hand of Mallory or Miller (depending on whose turn it is to be saved) as they are about to plummet to their death.

The three heroes wander through the top secret installation in the clothes of dead SS soldiers, who have been dispatched by a bloody knife wound. They have re-enacted the terrible climb under extreme weather conditions, from the original novel AGAIN and AGAIN. They are described by the author as unshaven and in filthy blood and dirt stained uniforms but continually walk through sentry posts by bluff or producing the dead soldier's pay book as their pass. Worse is that they are captured or discovered by the Germans several times (one by the SS general in charge of the base who has an artificial arm) but simply dispose of the anatgonists because they have lightning fast reflexes or a steely gaze which disarms their captors. Mallory even walks through the base in the dead general's uniform by pulling his hat down (the artificial arm is the least of the issues). When he is told he cannot pass (surely he could have just walked walked past scared underlings!) he roars at the German in perfect German and is allowed through.

Like a bad B grade movie, you find yourself drawn to continue reading just to find out if it can get any worse. Also the original characters from Maclean are so strong you care about them.

Don't buy it and if your library has got a copy start a review of the purchase policies because this is a stinker. If you are going to read it, skip the "Ground Hog Day"events when you notice them. You will find yourself at the end of the novel very very quickly. I say end because the climax of the story has to be the deepest abyss in literary endeavour.