Code Breaker

Alistair MacLean's Code Breaker by Alistair MacNeill

Fiction/Action-Thriller/Adult/394 Pages

A world-renowned cryptologist is kidnapped. He is carrying coded documents which detail the operations of UNACO, an ultra secret organisation operating under the auspices of the UN.

UNACO's top team is sent to recover the cryptologist and the documents, only to find themselves up against their most ruthless foe yet, while someone back in the United States is threatening to bring the organisation crashing down.

Review

Before he died in 1987, Alistair MacLean was commissioned by a film company to write several story outlines. Of those outlines, Hostage Tower and The Death Train have been made into movies. Code Breaker is the sixth outline to be published as a novel since MacLean's death. All the stories are centred around one UNACO team, Strike Force Three, with the same characters appearing in each book.

MacLean was the master of the thriller with a twist, and while it's plain to see the machinations of his mind behind Code Breaker, for me it didn't come up to par. Compared with the novels written by MacLean, Code Breaker is way too convoluted. It lacked the crispness we have come to expect from MacLean, and ended up being too long.

But then, that's not really surprising as MacLean once stated in an interview that he "wrote each book in thirty-five days flat - just to get the darned thing finished." He also believed in not allowing anything to get in the way of the action. I think this is where MacNeill has stumbled as he gets bogged in a couple of places, and the pace is allowed to drop off. Also, there is a glaring continuity error in one part.

All that aside, Code Breaker isn't a bad book. It's a good bit of escapism, not too heavy. Ideal for the train trip to work and back.

My Rating: