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.
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.