Alistair MacLean Sea Thrillers 4-Book Collection: San Andreas, The Golden Rendezvous, Seawitch, Santorini Kindle Edition

For me, The Golden Rendezvous was the best story in this collection. The action is good and interesting characters. The other books are less interesting.

I read these books many years ago. They are still a great read. MacLean was an English teacher when he wrote his first novel and it shows. Compared to modern thrillers the writing style and use of words is much better. He paints word pictures better than most. And he was, of course, a master storyteller.

Alistair MacLean was such a clever writer. He wrote about the sea as though he were a sailor who knew the oceans of this world intimately. His writing is so graphic that one can imagine actually being in the story along with the characters. I would recommend this collection of books to anyone who enjoys a good mystery thriller.

Very interesting little stories relating to those people who are addicted to working on the oceans and seas of the world

Great stories but I am disappointed that it doesn't include HMS Ulysses which is one of the definitive war stories if the period, highlighting the awful conditions of convoys sailing in the depths of winter

Alistair Maclean was one of the best thriller writers of his time, and many of his books where set on ships and the sea. In theory, collecting four of Maclean's "sea thrillers" sounds like a great idea. And if they had included four of his best examples, I would highly recommend this. But just like 'Six Complete Novels', they seem to have assembled this collection completely at random. So rather than getting "the best of the best", we're served up only one of Maclean's strongest books, and three very ordinary ones.'The Golden Rendezvous' is the only book from Maclean's golden era of the 50s and 60s. Needless to say, is an outstanding thriller and a perfect example of the genre. Combining two of Maclean's key tropes, the whodunnit mystery and man-versus-the-environment action, the book revolves around the attempted hijacking of a luxury cruise ship. What is the motive for the hijacking, who is responsible, and how can the crew prevent it? This book alone shows how great Maclean was, which makes the other three books a disappointing letdown.'Santorini', Maclean's final book, is also his absolute worst. The contrast with 'The Golden Rendezvous' is so striking, you'd swear it was a different author. There is no action at all.....in fact, there is not much of anything. The plot makes no sense and goes nowhere, the dialgoue is stiff, the characters are cardboard thin, and the writing is just plain lazy. There is no excuse for including this in any Maclean collection.'San Andreas' is an okay wartime naval thriller, involving sabotage and enemy attacks on a hospital ship, that has an excellent start but slowly dissolves into mediocrity. Its presence here only serves to ask why 'HMS Ulysees', Maclean's first book and a classic of naval fiction, was not included instead.Likewise, 'Seawitch' is just okay at best, involving an attempt to defeat a sabotage attack on an oil rig. While nowhere near as bad as 'Santorini', it's still far from Maclean's best, with fairly weak characters and an overblown plot. Once again, Maclean published a far better oil-rig based book early in his career, 'Fear Is The Key'.So in all, we have one great book, two just-okay, and one dead set shocker. There is no excuse for such a lame collection, when Maclean published better sea-focussed thrillers that could have been included instead. 'When Eight Bells Toll', or even something like 'South By Java Head' are far more worthy than three of the stories included here.Really, you're just better off buying 'The Golden Rendezvous' on its own, and sticking to Maclean's earlier books. Leave this on the shelf.

Hours of exciting reading

once again a superb collection of the masters work

Good stories

I read Alistair McLean’s novels years ago and thoroughly enjoyed them. Re-reading them now, I find, while an interesting read they do not grip the reader in the manner of more modern times. They are quite predictable but still readable. The best part is that they are grammatically correct and have no spelling errors! A good read for those not wanting a” can’t put down “ novel.