Sun 10 Dec 2017
Reviewed by David Vineyard: ALISTAIR MacLEAN – Night Without End.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[7] Comments
ALISTAIR MacLEAN – Night Without End. Collins, K, hardcover, 1960. Doubleday, US, hardcover, 1960. Reprint editions include: Fawcett Gold Medal, US, paperback, no date stated [1960s], among many others, both US and UK.
That’s an understatement to say the least in Alistair MacLean’s Arctic thriller, Night Without End, that opens as the team at an IGY tracking station in the bitter north hears a plane where none should be, and one in trouble at that, a jet airliner circling above their lonely station, in trouble in the sky, and about to come down in an unforgiving land.
Dr. Mason, the narrator, and his two companions know what the Arctic can do to the unwary, the unprepared. They know routine, food, shelter, warmth, and common sense are life and anything less is death.
At his best, and this was written in his best period before his work became little more than screen scenarios, no one could drop you into the middle of a pulse-pounding plot with the same elan as the Scottish author of adventure classics like The Guns of Navarone and Ice Station Zebra. He seemed, too, to have a fine ear for the detail of Arctic adventure, for the ice prick pain of the bitter cold and the soul destroying chill no protective gear can fully repel.
If he lacked the Conradian or Stevensonian skills of a Hammond Innes or Geoffrey Household or the sheer gift for character of a Victor Canning and humor of a Desmond Bagley, he made up for it with driving narrative, impeccable research, and an eye for plot that Agatha Christie might have admired, for his best works tend, like a classic Christie tale, to set a small group of people in an isolated environment with a mystery to be solved whose solution is as vital to everyone’s survival as the natural world that threatens from without.
As with Ice Station Zebra, the McGuffin in this one is only important to set the action in motion, but that’s more than enough, this is about action, suspense, mystery, and thrills, not the history of a plot contrivance.
Here it turns out the cause of the plane coming down was no accident. It was hijacked and forced down, and it’s 18,000 miles off course.
No one knows who the hijackers are, why they did it, or if they survived, but they have committed one murder other than the passengers killed in the crash, and they are willing to commit more, and only Mason can uncover their plot, stop their sabotage, and keep his crew and the survivors alive as the weather deteriorates and the endless night closes in while outside human threats accumulate, including the good guys who will do anything to stop the killer escaping and the bad guys set to rendezvous with him and leave everyone else to die.
The tense finale on a shifting glacier is as satisfying as it is nerve wracking.
Night Without End is one of MacLean’s tighter plotted and leaner books, with just the right mix of action, atmosphere, weather, characterization, plot, and twists to keep you happily turning pages and wishing that someone today still had the skills to write this kind of book with the same economy. An old favorite, and I was both pleased with how well it holds up, but also how much of it I remembered considering I first read it back in Middle School.
This night has an end, and a very satisfactory one it is.
December 10th, 2017 at 9:29 pm
This was the first “adult” book I ever read, probably around 12 or 13, and hooked me on reading forever. Coming from a family of non-readers, this opened a whole new world for me.
To follow Mason as he tries to figure it out, feeling the cold and darkness, completely did me in. Did re-read the book about 20 years ago, and thought it held up pretty well from my earlier memories.
MacLean during this time period (1958-1967) was at his best, whether it was making you feel the bleakness of the situation using weather or emotion (one book starts off with the character listening from the ground to the two way radio as the plane with his wife disappears).
The other thing he did very well during this period was not have a superman character, but one that made mistakes and generally got beat up several times a book, and although ended up standing in the end, lost a little bit of himself to get there.
Desmond Bagley (who was probably a better writer), was to me the closest in style to MacLean, but those early books really were top notch.
David, thank you for bringing back some great memories.
December 10th, 2017 at 9:51 pm
For me, alas, this is one I’ve never read, though I’ve had a copy of the Gold Medal paperback, the one halfway down on the left, since almost forever. From David’s review, I’d say that the artist caught the bleakness of the Arctic setting perfectly.
December 10th, 2017 at 11:06 pm
The Fawcett cover is pretty accurate for the books feel.
Re Bagley, his most MacLean like books, and I agree, while a better writer, he was very close to the feel of the better MacLean novels, would be RUNNING BLIND, THE GOLDEN KEEL, and FREEDOM TRAP (filmed as MACKINTOSH MAN). But his best books like HIGH CITADEL went well beyond what MacLean was capable of in terms of novel writing and not just adventure.
Bagley had been an actor (in fact like Daphne du Maurier he was related to Basil Rathbone), and there was a theatrical element to his best books in terms of timing and capturing nuances of character.
Bagley like MacLean often included a puzzle and mystery element of almost Christie like complexity that wasn’t always present in Innes, Household, Lyall, or Canning who all began either on the Buchan or Ambler model. Duncan Kyle was much like MacLean too and to a lesser extent Brian Callison though dozens of writers like Joe Poyer and Clive Cussler began with MacLean as the model.
I don’t mean to imply MacLean was a bad writer or lesser writer, at his best he was one of the finest practioners of suspense plus adventure novels. From his first book HMS ULYSSES to FORCE 10 FROM NAVARONE there is nary a misstep or a bad book, and even after he began churning out those books that were largely just film scenarios he still wrote BEAR ISLAND and THE LONELY SEA. Even one of the film scenarios, WHERE EAGLES DARE, is highly entertaining and MacLean at his best.
In fact the great flaw of the later books is they just don’t compare to the earlier ones, not that they are bad or unreadable (I admit to liking THE WAY TO DUSTY DEATH if only for the great title).
NIGHT WITHOUT END though is a near perfect example of what MacLean did best which was combine a breathless adventure with a plot as twisty and complex as Agatha Christie.
December 11th, 2017 at 7:55 pm
This is a very enjoyable and informative review.
I’ll plan to read this.
But not until next summer.
Here is Michigan it feels as if we have ALREADY crashed into the Arctic!
This book will be more fun to read during a July heat wave.
December 12th, 2017 at 7:54 pm
Mike Grost,
It was 80 here the day I read it. Stay warm.
December 12th, 2017 at 9:29 pm
So many films have been made of MacLeans’s work, perhaps more percentagewise than almost any writer, it’s surprising that this book is not one of them.
December 13th, 2017 at 5:28 pm
There is a fan made “trailer” for a non existent film of this book made from clips from other films on YouTube that will have you salivating to see the real thing.