Book description
The classic tale of adventure and death on a mysterious Arctic island,
from the acclaimed master of action and suspense.
A converted fishing trawler, Morning Rose carries a movie-making crew
across the Barents Sea to isolated Bear Island, well above the Arctic
Circle, for some on-location filming, but the script is a secret known
only to the producer and screenwriter.
En route, members of the movie crew and ship's company begin to die
under mysterious circumstances. The crew's doctor, Marlowe, finds
himself enmeshed in a violent, multi-layered plot in which very few of
the persons aboard are whom they claim to be.
Marlowe's efforts to unravel the plot become even more complicated once
the movie crew is deposited ashore on Bear Island, beyond the reach of
the law or outside help. The murders continue ashore, and Marlowe, who
is not what he seems to be either, discovers they may be related to some
forgotten events of the Second World War. Alistair MacLean, the son of
a Scots minister, was brought up in the Scottish Highlands. In 1941 he
joined the Royal Navy. After the war he read English at Glasgow
University and became a schoolmaster. The two and a half years he spent
aboard a wartime cruiser were to give him the background for HMS
Ulysses, his remarkably successful first novel, published in 1955. He is
now recognized as one of the outstanding popular writers of the 20th
century, the author of 29 worldwide bestsellers, many of which have been
filmed.
