While not quite plumbing the depths of the awful 'Goodcareer decline. Despite returning to WW2, where some of his classic works were set, Maclean just cannot capture the magic this time around. Unlike his taut, fast-paced early thrillers, this a very loose, lightweight book that goes nowhere. It's the sort of book that's instantly forgettable; it's easy enough to read, but leaves no impression whatsoever once you've finished it. Years on, I still vividly remember the heart-pounding climaxes to 'The Satan Bug', or 'Fear Is The Key', or 'Puppet On A Chain'. But almost nothing sticks in my mind from 'Partisans', apart from an interesting torture scene involving a lethal injection, and the fact that everybody changes sides at least twice.

All the usual late-career Maclean flaws are here. The impossibly brave and capable hero Peter Petersen, the "heroines" who are actually utterly clueless damsels in distress, the clumsily handled "no-one is really who they seem" plot twists. Despite being set in wartime Yugoslavia, the book is very talky and slow moving, with almost no action at all. In fact, very little of interest happens at all throughout the book, it's mostly the characters trading one-liners and complaining about being left in the dark by Petersen. There's certainly no sense of the bigger picture of the fate of Yugoslavia and the progress of the war itself.

'Partisans' is not a "bad" book in the way 'Goodbye California' was, and it's readable enough. But it's nowhere near what Maclean was capable of, and will be a huge disappointment to fans of his early work. Newcomers should stick to his 50's and 60's stuff, and leave this one alone.

MacLean delivers another fun adventure in this 1983 yarn about a World War II espionage mission. Pete Peterson and his motley crew of maybe-Chetniks maybe-Partisans cross Italy and Yugoslavia to deliver a message and unmask a double agent. The characters are MacLean classics: beautiful patrician women, evil assassins, stalwart companions, and a glib and brilliant hero. The plot meanders through the confusion of Yugoslavia's three-way civil war while under Italian and German occupation. A fun adventure, a light read, a real Alistair MacLean classic.