Publisher’s write-up:
‘Twelve hundred British soldiers are isolated and waiting
to die on the small island of Kheros, off the Turkish coast. All these lives
could be saved if only the vigilant, savage and catastrophically accurate guns
of Navarone could be silenced. Navarone itself is a grim iron fortress, manned
by a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians. To Captain Keith Mallory, skilled
saboteur and trained mountaineer, falls the task of leading the small party to
scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone to blow up the guns.’
The
Guns of Navarone is an adventure / thriller novel written by the popular World
War II novelist, Alistair MacLean. While MacLean has disappointed me in the
past with some of his works such as The
Caravan to Vaccares and The Last
Frontier, the work often touted as his best would not be something that
would miss my attention for too long and thus, I thought I would give the
author one more chance.
The
story takes place with the Second World War in the backdrop; about a near
suicide mission to rescue 1,200 British soldiers stranded in the Greek island
in the Aegean Sea under German control. Apart from the Germans, the problem for
the British is the German fortress in Navarone with highly accurate mortars
capable of sinking any ship within its vicinity and in order to rescue the
soldiers, they would have to first silence the Guns of Navarone. The British
assemble a team led by Captain Keith Mallory, a mountaineer from New Zealand
supported by Corporal Miller, an American who is an expert with explosives and
Andrea, a brutish Greek soldier (ironic
that none of them are British). For the mission to succeed, they have to
get past the German patrols in the Aegean Sea, then scale the cliff under
unfavourable weather conditions (which is deemed impossible) to get into the
island of Navarone and finally, neutralise the German troops and destroy the
guns of Navarone and considering the circumstances, this was indeed a near
impossible mission.
I
enjoyed the fact that the author chose to base the book on a real incident (refer Battle of Leros) which makes such
novels all the more interesting. The author had built his characters well, each
of the three main protagonists from varied backgrounds with differing skills;
Mallory for the mountaineering and overall responsibility for the team; Miller
who also acted as the paramedic for the team and Andrea was the expert in
combat. I also liked the fact the author didn’t digress throughout the book and
in fact, this is the first Alistair MacLean book which I have read where there
is no needless romantic sub-plot. Being a thriller, there were also twists and
turns to look forward; with traitors and double agents appearing during the
course of the book and I liked it that the three main protagonists were quite
intelligent and made through tough situations owing to good planning and clever
thinking rather than mere brawn. Apart from all these, the author also
described the location and the setting really well that visualisation was very
easy and of course, I could effortlessly read the book owing to his lucid
writing.
However,
I have got to say that while the protagonists were highly intelligent and
capable, I felt their opposition was really weak making the impossible
circumstances more possible for the three main protagonists. Of course,
suspension of logic is quintessential to enjoying a MacLean novel as in every
novel of his, the protagonist has a near impossible mission and this book is no
different and for someone who wants a more rational plot, they would perhaps be
disappointed by the book. As always, I have never been impressed by MacLean’s
dialogues and feel that they are too direct and this book is no exception to
it.
On the
whole, the book had a highly gripping and engaging plot and it is a thoroughly
enjoyable experience for those who enjoy reading World War thrillers and I for
one am glad that I was willing to give Alistair MacLean one more chance.
I
would award the book a rating of seven on ten after consideration of whatever I
have stated above.
Rating – 7/10
Have a nice day,
Andy
