Alistair Maclean's Force 10 from Navarone

The thrilling sequel to Maclean’s runaway hit, The Guns of Navarone, Force 10 from Navarone is a great read, not to mention, an incredibly cool title. With extraordinarily graphic fight scenes and a surreal Alpine setting in what was former Yugoslavia, this book promises nail-biting action till the very end.

Captain Mallory, Corporal Miller and Colonel Andrea have just arrived at Termoli, Italy after their successful mission on the island of Navarone. Weary from the long hours of sleeplessness and the harrowing events of the past few days, they look forward to rest. But, Jensen, the chief of Allied Intelligence, Mediterranean, has other plans for them. War has broken out in Yugoslavia. The Cetniks, supported by the Germans, are seeking to crush the Partisans, who are backed by the allied forces. With three new additions to their team, all three being elite royal marine commandos, they set off to the Neretva valley of Bosnia. They parachute into what they believe is Partisan territory, their mission, to free four Allied agents who had been captured by the Germans on previous missions.

On the ground, however, they are captured by the Cetniks and the Germans, and are taken prisoners. They manage to fool their captors with a previously rehearsed cover story and get under way with the missions. But things are not what they seem and the people with them are not who they claim to be. What follows is a myriad of double crosses and triple crosses that leave you reeling and confused, masterfully planned and ruthlessly executed. This is a signature Maclean plot, and as in all Maclean books, the true mission is revealed only at the end, making for a delightful war/mystery novel.

Maclean has been skilful in portraying the emotions of his characters, or in some cases the lack of it, which is the case with two of the lead characters, Mallory and Andrea. This adds significantly to the mystery of the plot. He adds small pointers here and there to help the closely observant reader through the mystery. He adds a one line description of the fire burning at a blaze in the fireplace and at another point in the story, he says that it is burning low. Seemingly innocent, this gives us an idea of how much time has transpired in between. 

It seems that every time I read a Maclean book, I discover something new about his books, this quality I believe, is one of many, which make his books timeless and outstanding. This is one writer, whose books will never go out of readers, for his books are about much more than fancy weapons or wars. I believe them to be reflections of human emotions and testimonies to the variety of human populace in our vast world and the struggles they've had to endure to make our world what it is today. Let's also thank the Mallorys and Andreas of the real world for making it a much, much safer place, for not all is fiction.

Well, there's nothing left to say, sit down and buckle up! It is going to be one heck of a book!