Caravan to Vaccares by Alistair MacLean - Book Review

Author: Alistair MacLean

Genre: Thriller

Recommended to: MacLean fans, thriller lovers

Recommended Age Group: 14 or above

Rating: 5/10

Publisher's write-up:

“From all over Europe, even from behind the Iron Curtain, gypsies make an annual pilgrimage to the holy shrine of their patron saint in Provence. But something is different about this year's gathering; this year people are dying.

Cecile Dubois and Neil Bowman are also in Provence, and discover that someone is financing the gypsies. What is the secret they are so determined to hide? As they follow the caravan, Bowman and Cecile come too close to it for safety, and before long they are running for their lives.”

Unlike most Alistair MacLean novels, Caravan to Vaccares is not a novel based on the World War II. The book first came to print in 1970 and presumably, this story is also set around that time, during the Cold War era.

Review

The story is set at the south eastern province of Provence, in France. It begins with the murder of a gypsy and it was committed by his fellow gypsies. Why? Nobody knows, but it was clear that the gypsies had something to secret which they didn't want to be divulged and presumably, the deceased has come close to the secret. Cecile Dubois and Neil Bowman, British citizens, are also in Provence. Then there is also the Le Grand Duc, at Provence, who supposedly is a gypsy folklorist. Bowman gets curious about what these gypsies are trying to hide. He starts following the gypsy caravans, but little does he realise that he is inviting trouble for himself by doing so and that too, not only for himself, but also for Cecile.

Alistair MacLean hardly reveals the identity of his characters and Caravan to Vaccares is no exception to that. Nobody has any idea on who Le Grand Duc or what he is up to and the case is no different when it comes to Bowman. He describes himself as a “professional idler” and some readers might just try to finish reading the book as soon as possible just to know “who” Bowman is. It is not easy to describe any kind of a fight in words and even if one manages to do so, it might not be effective as the reader might find it difficult to imagine the scenes or comprehend what is happening. So, the author has to be appreciated for describing each duel so extensively, and personally, I had no problem in imagining the fight. That is something which I really liked about the book. A reasonable pace was maintained throughout the novel, which is an important feature of a thriller novel, I believe.

However, on the flip side, I’d say that the plot was dull, and in many cases, the antagonists were being extremely foolish, which isn’t exactly the sign of an “equal contest” between the protagonist and the antagonist. Besides, in some cases, Bowman’s survival was totally unbelievable, a combination of all sorts of luck and coincidences. Some readers may not accept the way in which the author portrayed the gypsies and their culture. Thrillers are mostly seen as a battle between “goodies and baddies” but considering “goodies”, considering Bowman’s character, he certainly isn’t the first person which would come to one’s mind. I was also not satisfied with the character descriptions as there was a high degree of imbalance. Some, like Le Grand Duc and Cecile Dubois were described so well whereas I felt most of the others were ignored, including Bowman. Any kind of digression ruins a thriller novel and the major deviation in this book is the romantic sub-plot featuring Bowman and Cecile. The Times praised Caravan to Vaccares saying “Even more action-packed than its predecessors” but to be honest, it wasn’t all that action packed, in fact, far less action-packed than one of its predecessors which I’ve read, South by Java Head, that is.

Summary of the review

The plot was average and there was nothing great about it. In most cases, the protagonist either gets extremely lucky or the antagonists were being very stupid. It did maintain a reasonable level of pace though, which made it readable.

There wasn’t anything special about the language used by the author but the fights were described well and dialogues were well constructed.

I wouldn’t exactly say that it is a good read and I shall recommend it only to MacLean fans or those who are willing to read any kind of thrillers.

Have a nice day,

Andy

Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene - Book Review

(I apologise for the the quality of the image. I shall upload a better one soon.)

Publisher's write-up :

“For Arthur Rowe the charity fête was a trip back to childhood, to innocence, a welcome chance to escape the terror of the blitz, to forget twenty years of his past and murder. Then he guesses the weight of the cake, and from that moment on he's a hunted man, the target of shadowy killers, on the run and struggling to find the truth.”

Set during the time of “The Blitz”, Ministry of Fear, is a mystery / thriller novel written by the British author Graham Greene. Arthur Rowe, a man probably in his late forties (it is purely my assumption, might be a detail I've missed out on, while reading), attends a fête, where he consults a fortune teller, who tells him to guess the weight of a cake, at a raffle which was being conducted at the fête and tells him the exact weight. Rowe does so, and wins the cake but from that moment, he is a hunted man and an attempt was made to poison Rowe at his own residence and retrieve the cake but, at that juncture, Rowe's house is destroyed by a bomb, due to an air-raid and the cake was gone, along with his house. Rowe wanted to follow this up and find out why some people are desperate for the cake. Little did he realise that he was just sending an open invitation to “danger” by doing so and probably, Rowe's only advantage is that, he himself has a shady past and is a murderer himself. During the course of the plot, Rowe is also charged with a murder, committed during a séance and evidences are against him. He goes into hiding, still desperate to uncover the mystery behind the cake. Giving out any more details would make this review a spoiler.

Greene has to be appreciated for the complex character which he has created in Arthur Rowe. A man with a shady past and with an excessive sense of pity for a protagonist, would put the reader into a dilemma, on whether to side with Rowe in his endeavours or not and in most cases, it is not likely to be the latter. Greene also brought out Rowe's character in a very interesting way, in the chapter, “Between Sleeping and Walking”. It was different, unlike most books, where, the protagonist's character is just brought out in one paragraph. The plot, throughout, was moving in one direction, something which should certainly be appreciated in a thriller. Another highlight of this book is the description of the war-torn city of London. In a thriller novel, a reader can't trust any character, anyone might betray the protagonist at any time and this novel is certainly not an exception to this clichéd definition. Moreover, Greene definitely would have to be credited for making a big issue, 220 pages long, to be precise, out of a meagre cake.

However, this novel is far from being perfect, despite the high amount of positives. Although the novel largely maintained a good pace, like a usual thriller, the second book of the novel, “The Happy Man” was like a road hump, and nearly looked like a sub-plot. Although the content of that book was definitely essential to the story, I found it a little boring. One might realise that sometimes, in this book, the coincidences that occur in this novel crosses the break even point for the line “believable”. Certain incidents were left unexplained, which ended up creating some lose ends. The book definitely had a good plot, but I don't think it was presented in the best way, and thus, reading this book might not be an experience which gives pleasure.

The book certainly has a lot of positives and in fact, I've hardly listed out so many positives in any of my other book reviews. But, the only reason why most people read works of fiction, particularly in this genre, is to enjoy and so, obviously, the rating would be pulled down for the very fact that I didn't really enjoy reading the novel. I'd say that, this book, in some areas is extremely good and in other areas ; I would not like to use the superlative, but would just end my description with a simple adjective, bad. I shall prefer sitting on the fence, when question of rating the book arises and I shall award this book a “neither here nor there” kind of a rating.

Rating – 5/10

Have a nice day,

Andy.

King Solomon's Mines by Henry Rider Haggard - Book Review

(My book is wrinkled, but the scanned image is much better than what is available in Google and Goodreads)

Publisher's write-up :


"The whereabouts of King Solomon's legendary diamond mines has been inscribed in blood on an ancient map now in the possession of Allan Quatermain. His enthralling story begins on a ship steaming up the east coast of Africa. On board he meets Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good, and agrees to join their search for Curtis' younger brother, missing, believed dead, in the interior. Aided by the treasure map, the men set out on a perilious journey, an adenture tense with danger and excitement that culminates in a mountain trek to the vast caves of Solomon - and what they find there."



King Solomon's Mines is a novel written by Sir Henry Rider Haggard, more than a century ago. Despite this time gap, this novel is still very popular. So, out of curiosity, I decided to read this work of fiction so that I could figure out why it is still so popular. So, I borrowed the book from a library in 2009, but being a slow reader, I couldn't even complete half the book within the given time. However, it did enough to grab my attention and eventually, after searching in book-stores for nearly two years (readers have lost interest in classics these days, unfortunately), I finally got a paperback edition of the novel and managed to complete the book.

Sir Haggard wrote this novel as a result of a five-shilling bet with his brother, saying he could write a novel better than Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. So, naturally, King Solomon's Mines is also an adventure story, with three men going in search of someone and something. Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good approach an old elephant hunter who lives in Durban, Allan Quatermain. Curtis' brother, George, had been missing and was requesting Quatermain to join their quest. Quatermain did have some information on Curtis' brother, that he had gone in search of Solomon's Diamond Mines. Quatermain has an old map, for which, an Portuguese explorer, Jose Silvestra is the cartographer. Silvestra lived around three-hundred years ago and Quatermain had acquired the map from his descendant. Curtis and Good, initially found it hard to believe but the former decided to have faith in Quatermain's story as by doing so, he has some chance of finding his brother. Quatermain agreed to help the two after Curtis had agreed to honour all of Quatermain's conditions. They hire a native servant, Umbopa and set out on this journey. Quatermain is the narrator and writes about his adventure as a story for his son to read.


" 'A sharp spear,' runs the Kukuana saying, 'needs no polish' ; and on the same principle I venture to hope that a true story, however strange it may be, does not require to be decked out in fine words."

- Allan Quatermain

Introduction - xi

It was fast paced and the events were very well described. I loved the author's language. Although this is a very serious novel, the author brought in some occasional humour with the character of John Good. While one could say that Good was quite unnecessary, his presence in the novel added more dimensions to the story as there was also a minor, romantic sub-plot between Good and a native woman. Another aspect of the book for which the author has to be appreciated for is for the fact that the book hardly digressed from the main purpose and Quatermain himself, cuts out several unnecessary events(as mentioned in the book).

However, in modern times, one might not agree with how the natives were portrayed as barbaric and aggressive (although, there were also some noble natives like Ignosi, Infadoos and Foulata). Quatermain's occasional comments showed that he was a racist. But Haggard can't be blamed much as it was probably how things were when the book was released, 1885, that is. I found the excessive use of old words such as “thy, thou, thee, etcetera” to be annoying. The natives of the lost world may have spoken an ancient form of Zulu, but Quatermain, merely translating them, need not have used such words. The only major downside of the book being that, the element of suspense was completely lost. The reader knows that the events that the narrator is mentioning is over, and he is able to mention them only because he is still alive. So, whenever Quatermain was caught in several situations where death was nearly certain, the reader knows that he'd somehow come out of it for he is still alive.

On the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I have realised why this book is still famous and I'm sure that this book will continue to remain famous for several generations to come. Further more, in my opinion, Henry is the obvious winner of the bet although I'm not sure whether his brother accepted it. Anybody interested in adventure stories will certainly enjoy reading this book. I shall gladly give this beautiful work of fiction an eight on ten. 



Rating : 8/10


In case you, the reader of this review, decide to read this book after reading my review, I hope you enjoy reading this book.  


Have a nice day,

Andy

A review of 2011

It is rather inappropriate to put up a review of an year, 11 days after it got over and especially in a book reviewing blog. 2011 was a very good year for me, might not have been the best for the entities I support in sports. Rafael Nadal only managed to defend his own fort at Roland Garros and Andy Murray disappointing yet again by not winning a single major. Chelsea, finished second in premier league and they've already been ruled out of the title race for the current season. The only positive thing that happened for a team I support in sports is England Cricket Team becoming the number one side in test cricket.

Talking about all this is nothing but digression in a book reviewing blog and so, I shall restrict my article to books. I started this blog to not lose my interest in writing and this blog has served this purpose well, for the eight months it has existed. 2011 has been the “Year of Books” for me. I'm a slow reader but I've read twenty books this year, and considering the years since 2008(the year when I started reading books), no other year is close to this figure. This was the year when reading became my favourite hobby.

I've reviewed nineteen of the twenty books that I read, with the exception of Artemis Fowl : The Atlantis Complex, ironically, the first book which I read in 2011. I've not reviewed it since I wish to review Artemis Fowl in chronological order and since I read most of the books in AF in 2008, my knowledge is not good enough for a review.

Not all the reviews I wrote this year were good reviews, in fact, I feel that most are bad. I started off by searching in google, “How to write book reviews” and after reading those articles, I started writing reviews and asked a friend of mine to “review my reviews”. Things weren't working out well and so, I decided to follow a particular guide to write book reviews and I reviewed Knots & Crosses by Ian Rankin, based on the guide. Thus, my reviews initially were highly rigid, and readers of my blog would be able to recognise that till the review of  TheTin Princess by Philip Pullman, the reviews that I wrote followed a very definite pattern.  

By this time, I had also read several book reviews by other authors and I had realised that most reviews gave out more details on the reviewer's experience than the plot and ISBN. So, I had decided to stop referring to any guides for my book reviews and thought that I should develop my own style as I didn't want my writing to be an imitation of someone else's style.

So, the first review of mine which was written without using any template was Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin, and I feel that it is one of the best reviews that I've written and I continued to follow this in my following reviews in South by Java head by Alistair MacLean and Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin. South by Java Head in fact got the first comment for this blog from a person whom I didn't know in real life.

The five reviews that I wrote on 15^th October, 2011 were below par, mainly because I was still following a template and moreover, the blog didn't have a single review written during the month of September and so, I became a little desperate to increase the number of reviews, so, I hastily wrote five reviews on the same day. It could be observed that the review of 2 Statesby Chetan Bhagat and Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin are too short and I'd definitely expand them this February and make them a little better.

This blog has received just 1000 views in eight months (400 being my own) which is quite disappointing and moreover, some of the views came through google image search. So, I genuinely might have had only around 400 readers, but that is satisfactory considering that this blog only has nineteen reviews.

On the whole, 2011 has been a very good year for me from the point of view of books, since I've got into this new hobby of book reviewing and blogging this year.

Currently, I'm reading Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and this blog would soon have its first review of a work which is not fiction and as per my current plan, I think it would have at least 2000 words (the review) and I hope I manage to complete reading the book by the end of February. I didn't want the blog to be empty for the month of January and hence, I decided to write this pointless review.

My targets for 2012

1. A minimum of 25 book reviews
2. Find at least one new author for the blog to increase the number of reviews (the ones reading this, by chance, and in case you desire to become an author at Astute, send a mail to viscountanderson@gmail.com)
3. Widen my horizon in reading. Right now, there are too many Ian Rankin books in my shelf and 8 / 19 reviews in the blog are books written by this author. Moreover, although there are 19 reviews, they are books of only seven different authors.
4. Review all books in the Artemis Fowl series.

I hope I manage to achieve the other three targets, even if I fail to achieve my second target.

Have a nice day,

Andy

Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin - Book Review

Publisher's Write-up:

“Gordon Reeve has a funeral to go to. His journalist brother has been found dead in a car, a presumed suicide. Not a nice reason to be flying the Atlantic.

And when he gets there it seems that nobody wants to answer his questions – why was the car in which his brother's body was found locked from the outside? Why does the local cop act like his shadow and prevent him talking to the friend who saw Jim last? Why does he have the sinking feeling that it wasn't a ghost he saw parked outside the crematorium?

Ex-SAS, a professional killer with an anger management problem, it's not in Reeve's nature to let such questions go unanswered, particularly when the murders come knocking on his own front door.”

Blood Hunt – the last novel written by Ian Rankin under the pen name Jack Harvey. Any person who has already read Ian Rankin's first Inspector Rebus novel Knots & Crosses, would naturally be attracted to this piece of work, as it features Gordon Reeve – showing the other side of his life. But, it is not necessary for you to have read Knots & Crosses to understand this novel – this makes absolutely no reference to any Rebus novel and is very much a stand alone.

Ex-SAS personnel, Gordon Reeve, now a tutor, doing survival training programmes for aspiring bodyguards or any other dangerous profession at South Uist, a Scottish Island in the Atlantic. He gets a phone call, informing that his brother had been found dead at San Diego, California, USA. On reaching there, Gordon Reeve is convinced that his brother has been murdered. However, the police are not willing to cooperate with Reeve and he isn't willing to let all the mysterious questions surrounding his brother's death (as mentioned by the publisher) go unanswered. His brother was working on an article on Bovine spongiform encephalopathy[BSE(commonly known as mad cow disease)] which might embarrass certain parties if the article comes to light. So, Reeve is now an avenger, although, he doesn't know who he is against and if he thinks he is not in danger, he is mistaken.

This book was is a wonderful thriller, probably the best I've read so far. It has a brilliant plot, good language, expressions and dialogues and to top it all, no boring sub-plots. What I like about Rankin's non-Rebus novels are his complex characters which gives me a lot of knowledge such as Miles Flint in Watchman (although it was on bugs, which didn't interest me) and Gordon Reeve in Blood Hunt. Gordon Reeve's interest in anarchism and Nietzsche and Reeve has managed to pass on his interest in anarchism to me. I had also failed to find any loose ends in the book, maybe because I read the last 150 pages in around two hours (my reading speed is around a page per minute). The best thing I liked about this book was that it had a very proper and precise ending, which was lacking in most of the other Ian Rankin books which I've read so far.

The downsides of the book were very few, but for someone who had read Knots & Crosses, the fact that there was no reference to John Rebus considering that he was supposed to be such a close friend, it would have definitely been disappointing. Moreover, Gordon Reeve reminded me of the protagonist in an Alistair MacLean novel which I just read.

This is a very good book to read if you're interested in thrillers and it deserves a rating of eight.

Rating : 8/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

South by Java Head by Alistair MacLean - Book Review

Publisher’s write-up:

“As Singapore falls to the Japanese, a small group of men and women set sail on a desperate journey. One of them carries a cargo without price – the complete plans for the Japanese invasion of Australia. The Japanese will stop at nothing to get these plans.”

I’ve a liking for history and I possess a particular interest in gathering information about the two world wars. When I wanted to read works of fiction on the world wars, I was immediately redirected to Alistair MacLean. I picked South by Java Head since my knowledge on the Pacific War isn't all that high (The edition I purchased was also rather inexpensive).

Coming to the plot, retired Brigadier Foster Farnholme is at Singapore and he is desperate to leave. The reason being, he has the complete plans for the Japanese invasion of Australia and wants to hand it over to the Australians. Unfortunately, the situation isn’t favourable to him, the Japanese troops are all over Singapore and the British forces were all set to surrender on the next day. Farnholme along with some people leave Singapore and after a chain of events in the sea, they end up in a British – Arabian tanker Viroma led by Captain Findhorn and his trusted subordinate John Nicolson. But, they know that they aren’t going to be out there for too long and the Japanese may attack them any time. The plot is centred on John Nicolson along with a romantic sub-plot between Nicolson and a nurse.

When I was suggested Alistair MacLean, I was told to expect a thrilling adventure, an element of suspense, traitors and double-agents and of course, protagonists surviving beating all the odds. South by Java Head fulfils all these, including the last one. It had a brilliant adventure, desperate people trying to reach Australia by sea from Singapore. An element of suspense – when the Japanese are going to attack and how this little crew is going to cope up with it. Protagonists surviving beating all the odds – I’m not willing to make this a spoiler. Definitely, you’d also be made to guess who is going to be the traitor, there might be one or more.  

But, the book certainly also has several drawbacks. Alistair MacLean might be well known for anything else, but certainly not for his language, with most of the dialogues being flat and boring and also had occasional grammatical errors. I also didn’t like the way the author portrayed the Japanese, as heartless killing machines and frequently referring to them as “those inhuman devils”. Besides, people who aren’t familiar with maritime terms would find it difficult to understand the navy jargons. Moreover, the end to the sup-plot was also quite abrupt, as though the author used it only to lighten the entire plot and had no intentions of giving it a proper finish. There were also several loose ends, such as; it was never mentioned why Farnholme had a liking for the two year old boy and why he had to arrange such a dangerous trip for him.  

However, the bottom-line is, whether the reader contemplates if the occurrences are possible in a real situation or not, the reader would certainly enjoy reading this book. This book is highly recommended to those who are in the same “boat” as I am in terms of interests. I’m willing to give this book a six out of ten, because of the excessive number of negatives.

Rating : 6/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin - Book Review

Publisher's write up:

“Because the first body was found in Wolf Street, because the murderer takes a bite from each body, the press have found a new terror, Wolfman...

Drafted down to the Big Smoke thanks to his supposed expertise in the modus operandi of serial killers, Inspector John Rebus is on a train south from Edinburgh. His Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't too happy at yet more interference. It's bad enough having several Chief Inspectors on your back without being hounded at every turn by an upstart Jock. Rebus is going to have to deal with racial prejudice as well as the predations of a violent maniac. When he's offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive lady psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to turn down. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.”

Tooth and Nail is the third book in the Inspector Rebus series. Its predecessor, Hide & Seek was a disappointment and it hence, when I started reading Tooth & Nail, naturally, I didn't have any high expectations on this book. I became eager to read Tooth & Nail when I learnt that Rebus' next case is not going to be at Edinburgh, but at London.

London is terrorised by a murderer who has already killed four women, women with absolutely no connection (in terms of profession, ethnicity, background, etcetera). The killer is christened Wolfman by the press since the body of the former's victim was found at Wolf Street. John Rebus, after his successful tracking down of a serial killer in his first adventure (Knots & Crosses), his fame, to his surprise, reached the south, and he was deemed an expert with serial killers (little did the Scotland Yard know that the first case was a personal confrontation). So, he had to carry with the burden of expectation from the Lothian and Borders police back at Edinburgh and at the same time, cope up with the racial slur from the London folk.

Probably because I didn't have any high expectation, I found this book to be quite interesting. After a gap in Hide & Seek, Rebus' personal life had been touched upon again, with a sub-plot in the book on his personal life and it was also reasonably well connected to the main plot. Although the usual sidekicks of Rebus don't appear in this, his very presence, owing to his astute characteristics, is more than enough to make the book interesting. Rankin also managed to grip the reader's fingers to the pages of this book, and I was constantly guessing who this Wolfman was going to be and what made the job all the more difficult was that at a particular stage in the book, the author manages to convince the reader that around half a dozen characters have equal chance of being the Wolfman.

Since Rankin had already moved out of Scotland, in order to not lose his identity as a Scottish crime novelist, he also introduced a lot of Scottish words such as hoolit, messages (groceries), wersh, etcetera.

“I also started to introduce Scottish words into the text, perhaps to ensure that I wouldn't lose them entirely. After all, living in rural south-west France, I had few opportunities to say things like wersh(sour), winching(going steady) and hoolit(drunk)”. - Ian Rankin

But, like most of the other Ian Rankin books I've read so far (The Flood, Knots& Crosses, Watchman, Hide & Seek, Tooth & Nail and A Question of Blood), Tooth & Nail too had a disappointing finish (Hide & Seek's was satisfactory while A Question of Blood's finish was good). This maybe owing to the fact that Rankin as a writer is still young but when it comes to a crime novel, the end is very crucial and if that isn't proper, it undermines the novel as a whole. There were also a few loose ends, topics which needn't even have been brought up, put in crude terms, done just to increase the number of pages and make the reader make stupid guesses about the Wolfman.

In terms of language, facts, the amount of excitement it offered to the reader and the finish, in a scale of ten, I'd give this book a seven.


External Links :


http://oharasbookreviews.blogspot.com/2011/03/tooth-and-nail-by-ian-rankin.html

http://www.ianrankin.net/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_and_Nail_(novel)

Rating : 7 / 10

Have a nice day,

Andy