Hm...what I learned from this book.  Well, first of all, I like the movie "Bear Island" much better than I liked the book.  I suppose that's unusual to begin with.  Anyway, as for the book goes, it is a pretty typical Alistair MacLean offering.  Though I've read only a few of his books, maybe this is the second, they seem to follow a similar pattern of presentation.  It goes something like this...

The first 100 pp or so of the book are spent introducing characters, seeing some of them drop off right and left to a variety of villanous acts, and some just disappear.  There seems to be no common thread amongst these deaths, and the reader is left wondering, perhaps wallowing, in an effort to make sense of things.  Before long, however, one character emerges as being quite clever, and not who he is painted to be in the beginning.  Then, once you hit about 3/4 of the way through the story a few, then a building momentum of revelations start to be offered.  Finally, at the end, one of the characters engages in a prolonged monologue (15-20 pp) that explains what happened, who did it, and why, to the readers who are not at all likely to have figured it out on their own.  I know I couldn't have come up with the whole story without the monologue.

If you like mysteries you may like this one, but I plowed through, mainly because I wanted to see how the book ended up, compared to the movie of the same name&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Bear-Island-VHS/dp/6304052952/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Bear Island [VHS</a>](starring Donald Sutherland).  Thus the luke-warm rating of three stars...it was "OK".  Cheers.
Hm... what I learned from this book. Well, first of all, I like the movie "Bear Island" much better than I liked the book. I suppose that's unusual to begin with. Anyway, as for the book goes, it is a pretty typical Alistair MacLean offering. Though I've read only a few of his books, maybe this is the second, they seem to follow a similar pattern of presentation. It goes something like this... The first 100 pp or so of the book are spent introducing characters, seeing some of them drop off right and left to a variety of villanous acts, and some just disappear. There seems to be no common thread amongst these deaths, and the reader is left wondering, perhaps wallowing, in an effort to make sense of things. Before long, however, one character emerges as being quite clever, and not who he is painted to be in the beginning. Then, once you hit about 3/4 of the way through the story a few, then a building momentum of revelations start to be offered. Finally, at the end, one of the characters engages in a prolonged monologue (15-20 pp) that explains what happened, who did it, and why, to the readers who are not at all likely to have figured it out on their own. I know I couldn't have come up with the whole story without the monologue. If you like mysteries you may like this one, but I plowed through, mainly because I wanted to see how the book ended up, compared to the movie of the same name&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Bear-Island-VHS/dp/6304052952/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt? ie=UTF8">Bear Island [VHS</a>](starring Donald Sutherland). Thus the luke-warm rating of three stars... it was "OK". Cheers.