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William Sydney Graham (1918-1986) is increasingly acknowledged as one of the most important British poets of the twentieth century. In playful but profound exercises in self-reflexivity, such as "Implements in their Places" and "What is the Language Using Us for?", he lays down a challenge to his readers which this book takes up. What exactly is he saying about language, and how are his concerns related to the apparently similar ones of postmodern theory? Matthew Francis offers a surprising answer: the theme of language in the poems is inextricable from that of community. Writing, for Graham, must always justify itself in terms of an idealized model of community based on his working-class Clydeside childhood. His work is haunted by guilt: in becoming a writer he felt he had betrayed his family and background. He attempts to assuage this by means of an ingenious metaphor that presents language itself as a community. Francis traces the development of this metaphor from the experimentalism of the early poems through the complexities of Graham's most ambitious poem, "The Nightfishing", to the subtlety and daring of the late work.Finally, he looks at some intriguing unpublished writings, and shows that their resistance to closure and dalliance with automatism are further attempts to solve this problem. Here as elsewhere, Graham's brilliant rhetoric and deep insight into language are products of a quest for a mythical linguistic community, 'where the people are'. ... Read more

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Chapters: Charles Leach, John Macquarrie, Matthew Mullineux, Francis Browne, Leslie Hardman, Theodore Hardy, James Godfrey Macmanaway, David Railton, Christopher Maude Chavasse, Geoffrey Harold Woolley, William Thomas Havard, Kenneth E. Kirk, Robin Roe, Eric Milner-White, John Chapman, Louis Isaac Rabinowitz, David Cooper, Jenkin Alban Davies, Edward Mellish, John Cox Edghill, J. Fraser Mcluskey, John Steele (Cricketer, Born 1905), Frederick Waldegrave Head, Philip Clayton, Philip William Wheeldon, Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, George Smith, Frank Russell Barry, Hugh Leycester Hornby, Guy Smith, William Addison, Gerard Weston, Noel Charles Christopherson, Arthur Groom Parham, Willie Doyle, Edward Keble Talbot, Thomas Malcolm Layng, Mark Green, Bernard Vaughan, Claud Thomas Thellusson Wood, Clifford Woodward. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 139. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Rev. Charles Leach (1 March 1847 24 November 1919) was a Congregationalist Minister and Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is notable as the only Member of Parliament to be deprived of his seat after being declared of unsound mind. Leach was born in Illingworth, near Halifax, but moved to the town and grew up in a slum called Ratten Row, where his mother died when he was five. He entered a worsted mill at eight which meant that he also had three hours elementary schooling per day. At fourteen he became apprenticed as a clog and patten maker and then trained as a shoe and bootmaker,. At nineteen he set up in that trade and on the strength of that got married to Mary Jane Fox. Moving to Elland near Halifax he built up a successful boot and shoe business, by 1871 employing three men, one woman and two boys. In Halifax he had become involved with the Methodist New Connexion Church and in E...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=9145663 ... Read more

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Chapters: Francis Asbury, Matthew Simpson, John Philip Newman, Thomas Coke, William Mckendree, Joseph Crane Hartzell, James Osgood Andrew, Beverly Waugh, Earl Cranston, Joshua Soule, Enoch George, William Logan Harris, Robert Richford Roberts, Calvin Kingsley, William Taylor, Edward Raymond Ames, John Emory, John W. Gowdy, William Alfred Quayle, Franklin Elmer Ellsworth Hamilton, John Fletcher Hurst, George Richmond Grose, Joseph Flintoft Berry, Davis Wasgatt Clark, Randolph Sinks Foster, Willard Francis Mallalieu, Theodore Sommers Henderson, Richard Whatcoat. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 116. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Bishop Francis Asbury (August 20, 1745 March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now The United Methodist Church in the United States. Born at Hamstead Bridge, Staffordshire, England of Methodist parents, Asbury became a local preacher at eighteen and was ordained at age twenty-two. His boyhood home still stands and is open as a museum in West Bromwich, England. In 1771 he volunteered to travel to America. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776, he was the only Methodist minister to remain in America. Francis Asbury statue, Wilmore, KentuckyIn 1784 John Wesley named Asbury and Thomas Coke as co-superintendents of the work in America. This marks the beginning of the "Methodist Episcopal Church of the USA". For the next thirty-two years, Asbury led all the Methodists in America. However, his leadership did not go unchallenged. His idea for a ruling council was opposed by such notables as William McKendree, Jesse Lee, and James O'Kelly. Eventually a General Conference to which delegates could be sent was established on the advice of Asbury's fellow bishop Thomas Coke in 1792. Like Wesley, Asbury preac...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=169082 ... Read more

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Chapters: Stephen Gardiner, Francis Mason, Matthew Carew, List of Archdeacons of Norfolk. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 25. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Stephen Gardiner (c. 1497 12 November 1555) was an English Roman Catholic bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I of England. He was born in Bury St Edmunds, but the date of his birth is suspect. His father is known to have been William Gardiner, a substantial cloth merchant of the town where he was born, who took care to give him a good education. His mother Helen was reputed to be an illegitimate daughter of Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford. In 1511 Gardiner, still a boy, met Erasmus in Paris. He had probably already begun his studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in the classics, especially in Greek. He then devoted himself to canon and civil law, in which subjects he attained so great a proficiency that no one could dispute his pre-eminence. He received the degree of doctor of civil law in 1520, and of canon law in the following year. Before long his abilities attracted the notice of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who made him his secretary, and in this capacity he is said to have been with him at More Park in Hertfordshire, when the conclusion of the celebrated Treaty of the More brought King Henry VIII and the French ambassadors there. This was probably the occasion on which he first came to the king's notice, but he does not appear to have been actively engaged in Henry's service till three years later. He undoubtedly acquired a knowledge of foreign politics in the service of Wolsey. In 1527 he and Sir Thomas More were named commissioners on the part of England, in arranging a treaty with the French ambassadors fo...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=262155 ... Read more

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Chapters: Gordon H. Smith, John R. Lasater, Matthew Cowley, Francis W. Kirkham, Robert L. Simpson, Osborne J. P. Widtsoe, Glen L. Rudd, Thomas C. Stanford, Millard F. Malin, Milton Bennion, Wendell B. Mendenhall, Greg Curtis, Ariel S. Ballif, Grant L. Spackman, Louis C. Midgley, Pace J. Mcconkie. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 55. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Bethesda, Maryland Gordon Harold Smith (born May 25, 1952) is a former United States Senator and businessman from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served two terms in the Senate. Born in Eastern Oregon, Smith was raised there and in Maryland before attending Brigham Young University and Southwestern University School of Law. Prior to election to the U.S. Senate he served in the Oregon State Senate including one session as President of Oregon's Senate in 1995. Smith was defeated for reelection in 2008 by Democrat Jeff Merkley. On September 18, 2009, he was named as President of the National Association of Broadcasters. Smith was born in Pendleton, Oregon, to Jessica Udall Smith and Milan Dale Smith on May 25, 1952. Smith's family moved to Bethesda, Maryland during his childhood, when his father became an Assistant United States Secretary of Agriculture. He was involved with the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. After graduating from high school, Smith went on a two-year mission for his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also known as the LDS Church or the Mormon Church, to New Zealand. Smith then went to college at Brigham Young University, received his Juris Doctor from Southwestern University School of Law, and became an attorney in New Mexico and Arizona. He moved back to Oregon in the 1980s to become director of the family owned Smith Frozen Foods company in Weston, O...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3540873 ... Read more

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Chapters: Francis Asbury, Matthew Simpson, John Philip Newman, Thomas Coke, William Mckendree, Joseph Crane Hartzell, James Osgood Andrew, Beverly Waugh, Earl Cranston, Joshua Soule, Enoch George, William Logan Harris, Robert Richford Roberts, Calvin Kingsley, William Taylor, Edward Raymond Ames, John Emory, John W. Gowdy, William Alfred Quayle, Franklin Elmer Ellsworth Hamilton, John Fletcher Hurst, George Richmond Grose, Joseph Flintoft Berry, Davis Wasgatt Clark, Randolph Sinks Foster, Willard Francis Mallalieu, Theodore Sommers Henderson, Richard Whatcoat. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 116. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Bishop Francis Asbury (August 20, 1745 March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now The United Methodist Church in the United States. Born at Hamstead Bridge, Staffordshire, England of Methodist parents, Asbury became a local preacher at eighteen and was ordained at age twenty-two. His boyhood home still stands and is open as a museum in West Bromwich, England. In 1771 he volunteered to travel to America. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776, he was the only Methodist minister to remain in America. Francis Asbury statue, Wilmore, KentuckyIn 1784 John Wesley named Asbury and Thomas Coke as co-superintendents of the work in America. This marks the beginning of the "Methodist Episcopal Church of the USA". For the next thirty-two years, Asbury led all the Methodists in America. However, his leadership did not go unchallenged. His idea for a ruling council was opposed by such notables as William McKendree, Jesse Lee, and James O'Kelly. Eventually a General Conference to which delegates could be sent was established on the advice of Asbury's fellow bishop Thomas Coke in 1792. Like Wesley, Asbury preac...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=169082 ... Read more

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Chapters: Gordon H. Smith, John R. Lasater, Matthew Cowley, Francis W. Kirkham, Robert L. Simpson, Osborne J. P. Widtsoe, Glen L. Rudd, Thomas C. Stanford, Millard F. Malin, Milton Bennion, Wendell B. Mendenhall, Greg Curtis, Ariel S. Ballif, Grant L. Spackman, Louis C. Midgley, Pace J. Mcconkie. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 55. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Bethesda, Maryland Gordon Harold Smith (born May 25, 1952) is a former United States Senator and businessman from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served two terms in the Senate. Born in Eastern Oregon, Smith was raised there and in Maryland before attending Brigham Young University and Southwestern University School of Law. Prior to election to the U.S. Senate he served in the Oregon State Senate including one session as President of Oregon's Senate in 1995. Smith was defeated for reelection in 2008 by Democrat Jeff Merkley. On September 18, 2009, he was named as President of the National Association of Broadcasters. Smith was born in Pendleton, Oregon, to Jessica Udall Smith and Milan Dale Smith on May 25, 1952. Smith's family moved to Bethesda, Maryland during his childhood, when his father became an Assistant United States Secretary of Agriculture. He was involved with the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. After graduating from high school, Smith went on a two-year mission for his church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also known as the LDS Church or the Mormon Church, to New Zealand. Smith then went to college at Brigham Young University, received his Juris Doctor from Southwestern University School of Law, and became an attorney in New Mexico and Arizona. He moved back to Oregon in the 1980s to become director of the family owned Smith Frozen Foods company in Weston, O...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=3540873 ... Read more

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Chapters: Francis Asbury, Richard Allen, Elijah Hedding, Daniel Payne, Matthew Simpson, Francis Burns, Thomas Coke, Henry Bidleman Bascom, William Mckendree, James Osgood Andrew, Beverly Waugh, Henry Mcneal Turner, George Foster Pierce, Thomas Asbury Morris, Joshua Soule, Enoch George, Robert Richford Roberts, Joseph Long, Edward Raymond Ames, John Emory, Osman Cleander Baker, Levi Scott, Cyrus David Foss, Randolph Sinks Foster, Henry White Warren, Richard Whatcoat, Stephen Mason Merrill, Leonidas Lent Hamline, William Paul Quinn, John Early. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 119. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Great MigrationCivil Rights Movements 18961954 and19551968Second Great MigrationAfrocentrism Richard Allen (February 14, 1760 March 26, 1831) was a minister, educator, writer, and the founder in 1816 of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME), the first independent black denomination in the United States. He opened his first church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was elected the first bishop of the AME Church. Allen had started as a Methodist preacher but wanted to establish a black congregation independent of white control. The AME church is the oldest denomination among independent African-American churches. Richard Allen was born on February 14, 1760, in Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia.) Allen's biracial mother and African father were both held as slaves by Quaker lawyer and jurist Benjamin Chew, so Allen himself was born into slavery; After Chew suffered a financial setback, he sold Allen's parents and their four children to Stokeley Sturgis, whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware. As Allen and his brother grew older, they attended meetings of the local Methodist Society. Richard had taught himself to read and write. Converted early, he j...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=285659 ... Read more

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The frigate Ariadne, fitted with sophisticated electronic equipment, patrols the Aegean Sea. Her official mission is to carry out a hydrographic survey. Unofficially, she is the eyes and ears of NATO - a spy ship. By the author of "Where Eagles Dare". ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Sadly, I have to side with the nay-sayers on this one.....
It's probably pipped by 'Goodbye California', but 'Santorini' ranks right up there as Maclean's worst book. If I were say that the story begins with an aircraft crashing into the sea and potentially triggering the countdown of its cargo of nuclear bombs, you'd think this would be a taut, suspensful thriller. But despite this fairly interesting start, 'Santorini' is boring, talky and dull. As with most of his later books, far too much time is spent talking....yes, we GET how immense the threat is and how international governments are watching events with baited breath, no need to spend the entire book endlessly repeating this. So what should have been a real page-turner becomes a chore to get through. You keep hoping that something will happen to kick the story into another gear, but it never really does.

Characters were never Maclean's strong point, but here they're cardboard thin. Grave, solemn heroes who can do no wrong and never raise a sweat, a villian who is easily identifiable and has no purpose other than to be a "bad guy", heroines whose only role is to be "classic Greek beauty" love interests. It's notable that nearly every single character here has a name that Maclean has used before: Talbot, Carrington, Andropolous, McKinnon.....if an author can't even give his characters original names, you know you're going to get cardboard cut-outs. And the plot goes nowhere, we don't even find out what the villian's purpose was; one of the protagonists is forced to narrate "well, we THINK his plan was this...." but nobody seems to know, least of all the reader.

'Santorini' is a tired, uninteresting book that does more harm than good to the Maclean legacy. What a sad way to bow out.

Worst MacLean book...really sad to see what it all came to.
Alistair MacLean, in his heydey, was the best writer of action/adventure.His heroes were heroic in wonderfully droll and understated ways.You never knew who the bad guy was...there was always a traitor in the midst of the good guys.The action was relentless.Lots of close escapes, twists and PLOT.Things happened.A lot of them.One adventure after another.Often his plots were little incidents in a larger war...especially World War II.

Many of his best books took place on ship.His first, HMS ULYSSES, still stands, in my opinion, as one of the gritiest and most stirring examinations of everyday life and death on a British ship at the height of the war.It feels almost like DAS BOOT...you can almost smell the grease, the fear, the steel and the heroism that arises from the fact that there really was no other option.Other books, like GUNS OF NAVARONE, SOUTH BY JAVA HEAD, etc. etc.were a bit more interested in outrageous entertainment, but they were entertaining.They felt carefully plotted, and if MacLean wasn't the best writer out there...he was a good plotter.Old-fashioned in the extreme...no sex, no cursing, no gory details.But brisk, witty and exciting.

As MacLean grew older, and his audience turned to newer writers...his writing became both flacid and desparate.His plots and the stakes his heroes played for often dealth with saving the world from annihilation.But his knowledge of modern life was sketchy at best.In SANTORINI, in 1986, he still calls nuclear weapons "atom bombs."There seems to be no understanding of computers.No true grasp on any believable geo-political condition we might recognize.

His writing, never one for brilliantly observed characterizations, is totally devoid of any distinction between characters.Everyone talks EXACTLY the same...Brits, Americans, Greeks.Presidents, sailors, admirals and criminals.They are the same...if they didn't have different names we wouldn't know who was talking.The "situation" that the characters are dealing with is indeed earth-threatening...but no one seems terribly upset or in a huge hurry to deal with it.And MacLean only seems to have the sketchiest idea of how the mechanics of what the characters do work.

I imagine the book was written out of force of habit.MacLean was probably old and disinterested...but still under contract, or trying to leave more money for his heirs, or something.But what he also left is a completely forgettable book, one to be avoided at all costs.

I'm very saddened to say this, because in the 50s and 60s...he was the master of what he did.Read one of those old novels, and even though it will feel old-fashioned, you'll know you're in the hands of skilled craftsperson.

Santorini: Will Time Tick Away Forever?
Santorini, written by Alistair MacLean, is one of the most intense and action packed books that I have ever read.In the middle of the Aegean Sea, the Ariadne, a Navy ship, finds itself caught up in a terrorist plot so deep, the Pentagon doesn't want anything to do with it.The bigger problem now is that the terrorists are now aboard the Ariadne.As the commanders try to battle the terrorists onboard, atomic mines are ticking below them, ready to blow at any time.When the officers finally get things under control, the terrorists make a move and hijack the sailboat that is supposed to transfer the mines to a remote area of the sea.The commanders come up with a solution to resolve the situation - but will it be too late?
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fast paced, heart racing action and adventure.MacLean does a great job of creating a plot that keeps you guessing and has twists and turns around every corner.He forces your mind to think and try to untangle the mess of a plot that has the end of the world on the horizon.This a great book, with a lot of intense situations and surprise outcomes.The ending is great, a true shocker that you won't believe until you read it.

Good... But...
Another suspense novel from the genre's master. Unfortunately this book can not be considered as one of his best works...

The crew of a navy ship are sudenly faced with two disasters: A burning yacht and a crashed airplane... The story gets more and more intense as the connection between the two events becomes clear. The story evolves on into an international espionage setting. The end is very untypical to macLean and is quite surprising.

Alistair MacLean's worst book
Alistair MacLean, one of the great adventure storywriters of all time, went into a precipitous decline beginning in the 1970s."Bear Island" (1971) is the last of his stories that can hold a candle to his great workof the 1950s and 1960s.From that time on, the decline is relentless, witheach book being worse than its predecessor.

"Santorini", published in1986, is the last sad evidence of this prodigious talent in decline.Thebook is static and talky, with no adventure, no suspense, no tension.And,worst of all, virtually all of the action takes place "off screen" and isreported to our nominal heroes as they converse in brave understatementmeant to convey the greatest heights of modest heroism.Upper lips don'tget any stiffer than those of Commander Talbot and his Number OneOfficer.

In "Santorini" MacLean expends all of his energy laying on verythick the cataclysmic consequences that would result from the explosion ofthe atomic and hydrogen bombs that lie in the hold of an aircraft lying atthe bottom of the sea.This is typical of his latter work:he tries tocreate suspense by escalating to nearly world-ending destruction theconsequences that would befall mankind if the villain has his way.At thesame time, in the latter books, MacLean creates heroes that appear to besupernaturally talented and cunning - so much so, that never for a momentdoes the reader believe that the villain - a "genius", according to theauthor - has a chance of succeeding.

In his latter works, his tendency tohyperbole clearly gets the better of him.His protagonists are supermen,and his villains are the earthly manifestation of evil, making Satanhimself seem like a choirboy by comparison.Their boundless evil providesjustification for the ruthless tactics of the protagonists.In theblack-and-white moral universe of MacLean's latter stories, the only way todefeat such villains is to replicate their ruthlessness in the name of"good".This is not a very becoming trait in a writer, especially when itis dwelled on as much as MacLean tends to in some of this books."GoodbyeCalifornia", for example, is an ugly piece of work that - if it could for amoment be taken seriously - would deserve the label "fascistliterature".

There is laziness about even his early work that simply goesout of control in the latter books.In "Santorini", for example, everycharacter uses the word "inevitably" - not because it makes sense for themto do so, but simply because the author is too lazy to come up withdialogue that distinguishes one character from another.

"Santorini"ranks below such abysmal efforts as "Goodbye California", "Floodgate","Athabasca", and "Partisans", and stands, to my mind, as the worst of anoutstanding writer's work.

Anyone interested in good adventure storiesshould steer clear of MacLean's latter work.Read the outstanding tales hewrote in the 1950s ("HMS Ulysses", "The Guns of Navarone", "Fear Is theKey") and the 1960s ("The Satan Bug", "The Dark Crusader", "When 8 BellsToll"). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A nice little British cosy murder
This story was originally run as a newspaper serial during the late 1920s and was not published as a book until the 70s, when a family member edited out the re-hashing of all the previous weeks' redundant action and re-submitted the manuscript as a regular mystery novel.

At only 130+ pages, it's really more of a novella but, it's still great hammock-reading.

A young bachelor driving his sporty convertible through an English town gives an attractive young gal a lift to her nearby home. He drops her off at The White Cottage and, more quickly than he can put up his top to avoid getting drenched by the rain, a shot rings out from the cottage. Along with a nearby constable, the young man, rushes to investigate and finds a man lying dead of a shotgun blast to the chest. It just so happens that the young man is the son of a renowned Scotland Yard inspector who is, of course, immediately called in on the case.

There are plenty of suspects in both The White Cottage as well as in the curmudgeony victim's incongruous mansion next door. The many clues point in one direction and then another.

Since the story first ran as a serial, there is plenty of action in this one, sort of a literary cliffhanger.

Margery Allingham is much more widely known for her "Campion" series so you might wish to read one of those entries first, "The Crime at Black Dudley," for instance, (the first of the series); however, just about any fan of British cosy murders will enjoy this one. ... Read more

Product Description
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; women in distress and above all -- murder. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A Dated Book
I had great difficulty finishing this book.I thought that the writing style was terrible & the plot silly.True, the story takes place & was written in the late sixties so the writing might be dated.If so, the book is far from a classic.I think the book was made into a lackluster movie too.I'm beginning to wonder about the quality of the author's other books.I've thoroughly enjoyed the movies "Ice Station Zebra" & "Where Eagles Dare" (a real favorite of mine) but I think now that I'll pass on the book versions.

The Drug Underworld of Amsterdam
Alistair Maclean's "Puppet on a Chain" is a thrill ride straight into the late 1960's drug underworld of Amsterdam.The story opens with the murder, in the middle of Schiphol Airport, of the contact for Maclean's protagonist, Paul Sherman.Sherman is a veteran Interpol Narcotics Bureau agent, used to independent action and blunt force tactics.He is assisted by two attractive female agents, one an experienced operative, the other a rookie.Sherman is in the Netherlands to break up a vicious drug smuggling ring that will kill ruthlessly to protect its operation.

"Puppet on a Chain" has the standard twisting plot, local atmospherics, and sardonic dialogue that were Maclean's trademarks as a story-teller.Maclean allows his protagonist to have a bantering relationship with his assistants that provides a streak of humor as the plot unfolds.Unfortunately, Sherman's relationship with his assistants will be used against him.As his investigation is undermined by betrayal, leaving him constantly a half-step behind his adversaries, Sherman will resort to increasingly violent action to turn the tables.The story culminates in a violent struggle above the streets of Amsterdam to save the life of his surviving female operative.

This book is highly recommended to fans of Alistair Maclean, and to other readers looking for an entertaining story.

Fun And Games On The Zuider Zee
Interpol agent Paul Sherman has just arrived in Amsterdam and before he can even leave Schiphol Airport he has already witnessed the gunning down of his key contact, been knocked half-unconscious by an assassin, and tangled with local authorities.

"Check whatever you like with whoever you like," he tells a dubious police officer about his credentials. "I suggest you start with Colonel van de Graaf at the Central HQ."

"You know the Colonel?"

"It's just some name I picked out of my head. You'll find me at the bar."

Alistair MacLean has fun with his sarcastic protagonist, and his levity is much needed with a storyline that gets gothic and overwrought. The drug trade is the nemesis in this taut action yarn, equal parts mystery and "Dirty Harry"-style rogue cop story.

Actually, I was reminded a lot of Nelson DeMille reading this, something I wasn't expecting. MacLean is known for his fast-paced action yarns, but not for the humor he shows off here, often and well. Like DeMille, MacLean here presents a wonderful narrative voice that deepens our sense of engagement with the tale's teller by using humor and a feeling for the moment that is at times quite fine.

Occasionally the plot seems to almost veer into parody, as when Sherman checks into a hotel and almost immediately is set upon by a hopped-up bellboy. There's also an attack by wimple-wearing haymakers and the use of a safe as torture device. I wish he had let himself go more in a comical direction with these ideas, but he had an army of readers who expected otherwise.

It's not an easy book to follow, maybe because I was reading it too fast. One bit on the last page between Sherman and a woman is especially odd; I'm still not sure if he was proposing to her or exposing her as a double agent. The villains, when revealed, as not exactly who you expect in part because their motives and modus operandi make no sense. Of course, MacLean is writing for effect here, nowhere more so than in the title image of a Dutch doll hanging from a hook, which the bad guys use to demonstrate their menace. Why? Don't ask, just keep reading.

But that's the easy part. It's a fast, fun read. The best bit is when Sherman does some investigating of a barge operating around the Zuider Zee; MacLean's ability to convey the sense of the natural world and its elements is on full display in a night scene with "the faint threnody of the wind and the soft creaking and rubbing as the wind made the barges work gently at their moorings." After eluding some assassins, Sherman gets on the wheelhouse roof and quickly realizes he's likely to freeze to death in the hard winter cold coming off the water.

Since he's telling you all this, you sense Sherman will pull through, but MacLean keeps many balls in the air and the reader isn't let off so easy. You might feel a little like that puppet on a chain as MacLean dangles your expectations and pulls your strings; but his intentions are honorable and it's all in good fun.

Suspenseful and entertaining
When Major Paul Sherman of the London Bureau of Interpol arrives at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, he is not greeted in a very smooth manner. Indeed, he is viciously struck in the solar plexus by the airline bag of a swarthy man in a black coat. As Sherman starts to investigate the death of Jimmy Duclos, he wonders why his presence in Holland is so undesirable, all the more since he quickly notices that he is being followed by the grey nondescript anonymity of a man. Skilfully reversing the roles, Sherman follows the mysterious man who leads him unawares to the warehouse of a company called "Morgenstern and Muggenthaler". After having succeeded to penetrate the warehouse, Sherman finds the astonishing array of thousands of puppets identical in shape and size and, more surprisingly so, row upon row of books entitled "The Gabriel Bible". But why does each volume of these Bibles have a hole that was smoothly scooped out of its centre so that it extends almost to the entire with of the book? And why do these Bibles have a fly-leaf with the printed inscription: "With the Compliments of the First Reformed Church of the American Huguenot Society"? Well, surely not an easy mystery to solve for Major Sherman...

WHEN IS A PUPPET NOT A PUPPET?
Question:When is a puppet not a puppet?

Answer:When it's a corpse, of course!

Yes, In MacLean's _PUPPET ON A STRING_ this was one method that a psychopathic killer used to make his point -- his point being don't try to catch me or "this" could happen to you."This" being your body hanging from a hook through your neck from a third story flagpole projected out over the street.Gruesome, huh?

The plot revolved around the efforts of Col. Sherman, an Interpol agent, to find and eliminate a major drug supplier in Amsterdam.Our psychopathic killer was a prominent player in, but not the "mastermind" of the drug distributors.

At times during this book, I wondered how Col. Sherman had survived as long as he had.On at least three occasions he was careless enough to get captured, severely beaten, and almost killed.Only a combination of a lot of luck and last second help from unexpected places kept him alive.He also made enough serious mistakes and overlooked the obvious with such frequency that his friends and aides often found themselves in serious trouble or, worse, turned up dead.

Those are the weak points.On the other hand, Sherman was remarkably resilient, and came out of each failure a little closer to finding out who was running the show and what ingenious methods were being used to smuggle the world's largest supply of heroin into those countries where it brought the highest prices.

The action was non-stop, and, at least to this reader, the ending did come as a surprise.I could easily picture it as a spy thriller movie starring whoever is the "star of the moment."

If you can suspend disbelief for a bit and just read _PUPPET ON A STRING_ as a fast paced thriller, I think you'll enjoy it in spite of a few "aw come on, he must be smarter than that" reactions.I know that I did. ... Read more

Product Description
To say that the writings of St. Francis reflect his personality and his spirit is but another way of saying that they are at once formidably mystic and exquisitely human; that they combine great elevation of thought with much picturesqueness of expression. This twofold element, which found its development later on in the prose of mystics like St. Bonaventure and in the verse of poets like Jacopone da Todi, and which has ever been a marked characteristic of Franciscan ascetic literature, leads back to the writings of the Founder as to the humble upper waters of a mighty stream. St. Francis had the soul of an ascetic and the heart of a poet. His unbounded faith had an almost lyric sweetness about it; his deep sense of the spiritual is often clothed with the character of romance. This intimate union of the supernatural and the natural is nowhere more strikingly manifested than in the writings of St. Francis, which, after the vicissitudes of well nigh seven hundred winters, are still fragrant with the fragrance of the Seraphic springtide. (From the Introduction)

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This digital document is an article from Irish Literary Supplement, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2007. The length of the article is 3442 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Casting a long shadow.(Thomas Francis Meagher: The Making of an Irish American Irish)(Book review)
Author: Matthew O'Brien
Publication: Irish Literary Supplement (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 26Issue: 2Page: 13(2)

Article Type: Book review

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A peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, scholarly journal, publishing articles in theology, philosophy, and history, from a broadly Catholic perspective. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more