Floodgate

by Alistair MacLean
Category: "Fiction - Adventure"
Pages:310
Year of Publication:1983
Date Added:11/05/2014
Date Read:04/04/2016
Notes:Irish terrorists are demanding that all British troops be removed from Northern Ireland. They are backing their demands by blowing up a series of dikes in the Netherlands. Dutch policeman Peter Van Effen and two colleagues infiltrate the terrorists by posing as munition experts. Things get trickier when Van Effen's sister and girlfriend are kidnapped by the group. But good guys triumph by the clever ploy of releasing knock out gas in the room with all the bad guys — after standing by while they blow up several dikes and flood huge areas, exploding a nuclear device in the North Sea and taking over the most important flood control dam in the nation.
My Rating: 3

Reviews for Floodgate

Review - Floodgate

Horrible, boring and ridiculous. The "story" is advanced mostly through dialogue in which the characters talk about how clever they are, dismiss the possibility of complications simply by declaring that the complications won't, or can't, happen, and seemingly read the minds of the terrorists. Very little actually happens, and there was no reason whatsoever why the good guys couldn't have defeated the bad guys at any point in the story without allowing all the destruction to occur. Just ludicrous. I used to read Alistair MacLean books over and over when I was a teen, but I'd never read this one. I'm afraid to reread the ones I used to love in case I find out that they were this bad and I just lacked discernment. I'm hoping that MacLean just became dotty in his old age and continued writing simply from habit.
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