Search results for ""Author Alistair MacLean""

Reissue of the classic tale of terrorism, where a criminal fanatic is hell-bent on blasting San Francisco into the ocean, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. 'Earthquake country,' said the Professor. 'San Francisco is geologically and seismologically a city that waits to die. Los Angeles is ringed by earthquake centres – seven massive quakes so far. We have no idea where the next, the monster, will hit…' …until a criminal fanatic kidnaps a nuclear scientist and builds his own atomic bombs. If exploded on California's fault lines they could trigger off the mightiest earthquake of them all – killing half its population and dumping the entire city of San Francisco into the sea. Goodbye California…

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The classic tale of espionage set in Cold War Europe, where the world’s greatest circus acrobat must break into an impenetrable fortress, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world’s greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East European regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man, and recruits Bruno for an impossible raid – on the impreganble Lubylan fortress, where his family is held. Under cover of a circus tour, Bruno prepares to return to his homeland. But before the journey even begins a murderer strikes twice. Somewhere in the circus there is a communist agent with orders to stop Bruno at any cost…

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The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Now reissued in a new cover style. The guns of Navarone, huge and catastrophically accurate, embedded atop an impregnable iron fortress in the Mediterranean Sea. Twelve hundred British soldiers trapped on a nearby island, with no hope of rescue from Allied ships, waiting to die. Keith Mallory, world-famous mountaineer, skilled saboteur. His mission: to lead a small team of misfits and silence the guns forever. Reaching the island and scaling the sheer cliffs undetected will be hard enough; defeating the German forces and destroying the massive guns all but impossible. And as for getting out alive when there may be a traitor in the team…

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The novel that launched the astonishing career of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of action and suspense – an acclaimed classic of heroism and the sea in World War II. Constant patrols have pushed the crew of the HMS Ulysses beyond the limits of endurance. And now they must be put to sea again, to escort a vital supply convoy heading for Murmansk. As they head deep into the frozen waters they are faced not only with the fierce arctic weather, but a swarm of airborne attacks, German ships, then the feared U-boats, all hellbent on destroying the convoy. With each day threatening another sudden attack, and increasing hardships aboard the frozen ship, Ulysses suffers greater damage trying to protect the other vessels. And soon the journey becomes a tense and deadly game of cat and mouse between the crippled cruiser and her silent pursuers.

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The 50th anniversary edition of this classic World War 2 adventure set in south-east Asia. February, 1942: Singapore lies burning and shattered, defenceless before the conquering hordes of the Japanese Army. The last boat escapes out of the harbour into the South China Sea, and on board are a desperate group of strangers, each with a secret to guard, each willing to kill to keep that secret safe. Dawn sees them far out to sea but with the first murderous dive bombers already aimed at their ship. Thus begins a nightmare succession of disasters wrought by the hell-bent Japanese, the unrelenting tropical sun and, ultimately, by the survivors themselves, as they head south by Java Head.

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Reissue of the classic tale of adventure and death on a mysterious Arctic island, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. A converted fishing trawler, Morning Rose carries a movie-making crew across the Barents Sea to isolated Bear Island, well above the Arctic Circle, for some on-location filming, but the script is a secret known only to the producer and screenwriter. En route, members of the movie crew and ship's company begin to die under mysterious circumstances. The crew's doctor, Marlowe, finds himself enmeshed in a violent, multi-layered plot in which very few of the persons aboard are whom they claim to be. Marlowe's efforts to unravel the plot become even more complicated once the movie crew is deposited ashore on Bear Island, beyond the reach of the law or outside help. The murders continue ashore, and Marlowe, who is not what he seems to be either, discovers they may be related to some forgotten events of the Second World War.

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A classic novel of ruthless revenge set in the steel jungle of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico – and on the sea bed below it. Off the Gulf of Mexico lies a sunken DC-3. Its cargo: millions of dollars in gold ingots and jewels guarded by the remains of two men, one woman and a very small boy. The fortune is there for the taking, and ready to grab it are a wealthy oilman, a gangster and a psychopathic hired assassin. Against them stands Talbot, a man out for justice. He will see the dead given a proper burial – but only after he has avenged their murders.

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A classic tale of espionage, secret missions and exotic locations which out-Bonds Bond, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Eight job advertisements.Eight jobs. Eight specialists in modern technology required. Eight scientists to fill them.Applicants to be married, with no children, and prepared to travel. Highly persuasive salaries. One criminal mastermind.Eight positions filled. Eight scientists – and their wives – disappear. Completely. One secret agent to stop him.Advertisement no.9. Sydney, Australia. Fuel specialist required. Looks like a job for John Bentall…

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Gripping and tense story of secret agents, even more secret government facilities, and a deadly virus, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Mordon Chemical Research Centre: an ultra top secret facility hidden in the English countryside and one of the most secure places in the world. But now it has been broken into and the Satan Bug, the deadliest toxin in the world, has been stolen. Private detective Pierre Cavell is recruited by the British Secret Service to investigate, and it soon becomes clear that not everyone is who they seem. And then a letter is sent giving the authorities just 72 hours to meet the thief’s outrageous demands. There is no way they can pay the ransom, but if they refuse he will release the virus…

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The gripping tale of sabotage at sea, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. In the heart of the Aegean Sea, a luxury yacht is on fire and sinking fast. Minutes later, a four-engined jet with a fire in its nose-cone crashes into the sea. Is there a sinister connection between these two tragedies? And is it an accident that the Ariadne, a NATO spy ship, is the only vessel in the vicinity – the only witness? Only Commander Talbot of the Ariadne can provide the answers as he uncovers a deadly plot involving drugs and terrorism – leading to the heart of the Pentagon.

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From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all time classic Millions of pounds in gold bullion are being pirated in the Irish Sea. Investigations by the British Secret Service, and a sixth sense, bring Philip Calvert to a bleak, lonely bay in the Western Highlands. But the sleepy atmosphere of Torbay is deceptive, and the focal point of many mysterious disappearances. Even the unimaginative Highland Police Sergeant seems to be acting a part. But why? This story is Alistair MacLean at his enthralling best. It has all the edge-of-the-seat suspense, and dry humour that millions of readers have devoured for years.

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From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all time classic. Paul Sherman of Interpol's Narcotics Bureau flies to Amsterdam on the trail of a dope king. With enormous skill the atmosphere is built up: Amsterdam with its canals and high houses; stolid police; psychopaths; and above all – murder.

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The classic tale of suspense set in Provence, where an English tourist investigates a series of mysterious deaths, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. 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 are running for their lives.

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From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all time classic. 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, an airliner crashes in the polar ice-cap. In temperatures 40 degrees below zero, six men and four women survive. For the members of a remote scientific research station who rescue them, there are some sinister questions to answer – the first one being, who shot the pilot before the crash? Then, with communications cut and supplies running low, the station doctor must lead the survivors on a desperate bid to reach the coast, knowing all the while that there is a ruthless enemy in their midst, someone working to accomplish their destruction.

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A tense and nerve-shattering classic from the highly acclaimed masster of action and suspense. A ROLLING FOR KNOX is how the journalists describe the Presidential motorcade as it enters San Francisco across the Golden Gate. Even the ever-watchful FBI believe it is impregnable – as it has to be with the President and two Arab potentates aboard. But halfway across the bridge the unthinkable happens. Before the eyes of the world a master criminal pulls off the most spectacular kidnapping in modern times…

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A magnificent tale of heart-stopping suspense from the highly acclaimed master of the genre. The Rocky Mountains, Winter 1873… One of the most desolate stretches of railroad in the West. Travelling along it is a crowded troop train, bound for the cholera-stricken garrison at Fort Humboldt. On board are the Governor of Nevada, the daughter of the fort’s commander and a US marshal escorting a notorious outlaw. Between them and safety are the hostile Paiute Indians – and a man who will stop at nothing, not even murder…

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A classic thriller from the bestselling master of action and suspense. The atomic submarine Dolphin has impossible orders: to sail beneath the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean, and somehow locate and rescue the men of weather-station Zebra, gutted by fire and drifting with the ice-pack somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. But the orders do not say what the Dolphin will find if she succeeds – that the fire at Ice Station Zebra was sabotage, and that one of the survivors is a killer.

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The classic tale of adventure and the dark secrets of a lost city in the Brazilian jungle, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. THE LOST CITY Hamilton knows the way to the ruins deep in the Brazilian jungle – and the secret they hold. The millionaire who calls himself Smith seeks the lost city to avenge a wrong from his hidden past. Their journey down the River of Death is an epic of violence and danger. But the secret that awaits them in the lost city is more dangerous still – as a legacy of theft, treachery and murder stretching back to war-torn Europe comes to a deadly climax beneath the ancient walls.

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In wartime, people are either friends or enemies. In wartime, friends are friends and enemies die… PARTISANSWhile Tito’s rebel forces resist occupation, the Germans infiltrate and plan their destruction. PARTISANSThree Yugoslavs set out from Rome to relay the German battle plan – but their loyalties lie elsewhere. PARTISANSA dangerous journey with dangerous companions–where no one is who they seem–where the three find intrigue and betrayal around every corner…

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The tale of murder and revenge set on a remote oil rig, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. SEAWITCH The massive oil-rig is the hub of a great empire, the pride of its billionaire owner. Lord Worth, predatory and ruthless, has clawed his way to great wealth. Now, he cares for only two things – Seawitch and his two high-spirited daughters. One man knows this: John Cronkite, trouble-shooter for the world's top oilmen and Worth's ex-victim, is spoiling for revenge. In one terrifying week, Worth's world explodes.

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A collection of riveting tales of the sea including the story that launched his writing career and the account of the epic battle to sink the German battle ship, Bismarck. THE MASTER STORYTELLER IN HIS ELEMENT… Alistair MacLean has an unmistakable and unrivalled skill in writing about the sea and its power and about the men and women who sail it, and who fight and die in it. His distinctive voice was evident from his very first prize-winning story, ‘The Dileas’, and has been heard time and again in his international career as the author of such bestsellers as H.M.S. Ulysses and San Andreas. The Lonely Sea starts where MacLean’s career started, with ‘The Dileas’, and collects together his stories of the sea. Here is a treasury of vintage MacLean, compelling and brilliant, where the master storyteller is in his element.

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The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Winter 1943, and US General Carnaby has been captured by the Nazis. He is being held in a fortress high in the Bavarian Alps. headquarters of the German Secret Service, and in his head are plans for the invasion of Normandy. A special team of British commandos, a US Army ranger and a female secret agent is hurriedly assembled. Their mission: parachute into the area, break in to the alpine Castle, and rescue General Carnaby before the Germans can interrogate him. But unknown to all, there is another mission, and someone in the group is a traitor…

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The thrilling sequel to Alistair MacLean’s masterpiece of World War II adventure, The Guns of Navarone. Now reissued in a new cover style. The guns of Navarone have been silenced, but the heroic survivors have no time to rest on their laurels. Almost before the last echoes of the famous guns have died away, Keith Mallory, Andrea and Dusty Miller are parachuting into war-torn Yugoslavia to rescue a division of Partisans … and to fulfil a secret mission, so deadly that it must be hidden from their own allies.

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Reissue of the classic tale of high-octane adventure set in the world of 1970s Formula One, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Johnny Harlow seems to have it all: he's good looking, desired by women, and envied by men; he's also the reigning Formula One world champion, the poster-boy for the world's most thrilling and richly financed sport. But a recent devastating accident has driven him to drink. And now his beloved sport is changing: too many things are going wrong in too many races. And when Johnny is the apparent cause of the latest accident, he decides the time has come to sort things out. But what he finds has nothing to do with cars, and some people will do anything to prevent him from discovering the truth…

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The tense tale of a deadly terrorist plot set in Holland, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. AMSTERDAM AIRPORT HAS DISAPPEARED BLACKMAILThe mass of water in its place is the work of the FFF – an Irish terrorist group who want to force Britain’s hand. SUBTERFUGEThe Dutch call in Detective Lieutenant van Effen – feared interrogator and undercover intimate of the criminal Krakers gang – to sabotage the FFF’s plan. DISASTERIf van Effen fails and the FFF get control of the vital dyke, either Holland will sink beneath the sea or Britain will be awash with blood.

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On the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s successful navigation to the coast of Australia, this is Alistair MacLean’s absorbing story of one of Britain’s great national heroes, from his obscure beginnings to his sudden and violent death at the age of fifty-one. When James Cook was hacked to death by Hawaiian islanders on 14 February 1779, he was already considered the greatest explorer of his age. Born in obscurity but gripped by a boundless passion for new horizons, he became the greatest combination of seaman, explorer, navigator, and cartographer that the world had ever known. He still is. He had driven himself mercilessly, and his men likewise, and yet the surgeon’s mate on the Resolution was able to write: ‘In every situation he stood unrivalled and alone; on him all eyes were turned; he was our leading star, which at its setting left us involved in darkness and despair’. Between 1768 and 1779, Captain Cook circumnavigated the globe three times in voyages of discovery that broke record after record of exploration, endurance, and personal achievement. He explored and charted the coasts of New Zealand, landed in Botany Bay, explored the Pacific, mapped its islands, and travelled further south than any man before him; he explored the Great Barrier Reef and travelled thousands of miles north to tackle the North-West Passage. He excelled in all aspects of his craft and inspired in his men an affection for him and an enthusiasm for his undertakings that provoked constant loyalty and unfailing endeavour in frequently savage conditions. Alistair MacLean presents a graphic and lively account of this great explorer, his three amazing voyages and the adventures that befell him, his crews, and his ships in lands that until he sailed were in many cases unknown. Cook’s life was a resounding success and the story of it is a thrilling exemplification of his own description of himself as a man ‘who had ambition not only to go farther than anyone had done before, but as far as it was possible for man to go’.

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Reissue of the nail-biting tale of sabotage set in the desolate frozen wastes of two ice-bound oil fields, from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. SABOTAGE! THE VICTIMSTwo of the most important oil-fields in the world – one in Canada, the other in Alaska. THE SABOTEURSAn unknown quantity – deadly and efficient. The oil flow could be interrupted in any one of thousands of places down the trans-Alaskan pipeline. THE RESULTCatastrophe. One man, Jim Brady, is called in to save the life-blood of the world as unerringly, the chosen targets fall at the hands of a hidden enemy…

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Another magnificent tale of treachery at sea from a storytelling genius. Suddenly, just before dawn, the lights went out aboard the San Andreas. For the British hospital ship sailing the deadly, U-boat-patrolled Norwegian waters, a nightmare of violence and betrayal has begun – a terrifying game of sabotage in which an unknown traitor among the crew holds all the cards. The red crosses on the vessel’s sides spell anything but safety. For a dangerous secret has turned the ship into a priceless quarry. With the captain out of action, Bosun Archie McKinnon takes over. Alone in treacherous, frozen seas, her compass smashed, the San Andreas is being drawn relentlessly into the enemy’s hands.

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A timeless classic of modern-day piracy from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Aboard the SS Campari, all is not well. For Johnny Carter, the Chief Officer, the voyage has already begun badly; but it’s only when the Campari sails that evening, after a succession of delays that he realises something is seriously wrong. A member of the crew is suddenly missing and the stern-to-stern search only serves to increase tension. Then violence erupts and suddenly the whole ship is in danger. Is the Campari a victim of modern day piracy? And what of the strange cargo hidden below the decks?

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An undercover mission beyond the Iron Curtain to recover a defected scientist goes disastrously wrong – a classic early Cold War thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Doctor Jennings, a noted scientist in possession of a precious secret, has gone over to the Soviet Union. It is Michael Reynolds’ mission to get him back. To penetrate behind the Iron Curtain and reach his quarry will be difficult enough, especially with the fearsome Hungarian Secret Police watching his every move. Then, from inside that terrifying organisation, comes the offer of help – the question is: can it be trusted?

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"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

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