Word: macleans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
BREAKHEART PASS by ALISTAIR MACLEAN 178 pages. Doubleday...
Here it is again-that sinister, faintly claustrophobic ship of fools venturing on wintry wastes, those corpses that start mysteriously appearing, the urbane and ruthless government agent who is everything that E. Howard Hunt once hoped to be. This time, though, Alistair MacLean operates, not from some place like Bear Island or Ice Station Zebra, but in the American West (circa...
...train carrying relief and medical supplies to a snowy Nevada cavalry fort supposedly afflicted by an outbreak of cholera. As the train chugs onward through the mountains, bodies proliferate like Ten Little Indians, telegraph wires go dead, troop cars are uncoupled and plunge spectacularly into ravines. As always in MacLean, alarming quantities of wine and whisky are consumed...
Never mind that it often seems a parody of Zane Grey. MacLean's tale gleefully highballs along at a brisk, cinematic clip. Funny touches are provided by the English understatements of MacLean's Pinkerton-man hero. He is the sort of chap who, on examining an arrow embedded in the heroine's shoulder, might mutter, "Mmmm, Apache, I shouldn't wonder...
Vehicle of Expression. The Scots view the English as wanton spendthrifts locked into an immutably snobbish class system. By contrast, they emphasize their own rough candor and their belief in a radical kind of social justice. "The only class accent in Scotland," says Poet Sorley Maclean, "is the English...