content: This is the weakest book of his I have read, and that is about thirty MacLean novels. I understand that he passed away prior to this book being published and that is was compiled posthumously. While admittedly not all of his books are great, I don't feel this is up to snuff with any of the others. Don't make this your first MacLean book and unless you feel the desire to read every one of his books like I choose to, take a pass on it. I am unwilling to touch any of the Alistair MacNeill books written using MacLeans notecards because I feel those are apt to be pretty weak too, and no one ever seems to duplicate the originals. If you are going to give a couple of MacLean novels a try, go for "Where Eagles Dare", "Puppet on a Chain", "Bear Island", & "Ice Station Zebra".