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Alistair MacLean biography

 

 

Alistair MacLean

(1922 - 1987)

Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers or adventure stories, the best known of which are perhaps The Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both having been made into successful films. He also wrote two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. Compared to other thriller writers of the time, such as Ian Fleming, MacLean's books are exceptional in one way at least: they have an absence of sex and most are short on romance because MacLean thought that such diversions merely serve to slow down the action. Nor do the MacLean books resemble the later techno-thriller approach. Instead, he lets little hinder the flow of events in his books, making his heroes fight against seemingly unbeatable odds and often pushing them to the limits of their physical and mental endurance. MacLean's protagonists are usually calm, cynical men entirely devoted to their work and often carrying some kind of secret knowledge. A sometime twist is that one of the hero's closest companions turns out a traitor.

Information source: wikipedia