Bear Island

1973 Fontana edition

Author: Alistair MacLean

First Published: 1971

Pages: 280

In 1971 Alistair MacLean was on a bit of a roll. He had just come off the back of the books Puppet on a Chain and Caravan to Vaccares* (both of which had originally been planned to be film scripts rather than novels) reaching highs of No.5 and No.6 on the New York Times bestsellers list. After six consecutive years of an annual release from 1966 to 1971 MacLean fans would have to wait until 1973 for the next fiction story from the master storyteller.

The main protagonist of Bear Island is named Marlowe, a nod to Chandler perhaps? Rather aptly it is a murder-mystery. It was to become the last novel that MacLean wrote in a first-person narrative style.

Bear Island takes place in two key locations. A converted fishing trawler named The Morning Rose, and the ubiquitous Bear Island, the southernmost island of the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago. A frozen and inhospitable place - perfect for some rip-roaring action and adventure (if only that were true).


Aboard the fishing trawler which is skippered by my favourite character in the book Captain Imrie, are a group of filmmakers bent upon shooting a portion of their adventure project in the harrowing conditions of the Island to add a certain authenticity to the exterior shots. For some odd reason they also have a mock-up of a submarine control section and tower.

Our hero is a medical doctor hired to ensure the crew of The Morning Rose and the movie unit are in sound health when they arrive at Bear Island, and that they can cope with the environment they will be encountering at first hand. However, any reader of Alistair MacLean will know that in many of his novels, the 'Dr's are rarely what they seem to be so you start the book with that firmly in the back of your mind anyway.

Bear Island (all of it)

Amongst the trawler crew are ships' cook Haggerty and first mate Smithy, who along with their Captain and Chief Engineer Mr Stokes will play a significant part in the unfolding plot of murder, mystery and machinations. The film crew consists of many characters, such as production board members Otto Gerran, Johann Heissman, Mary Stuart, the director Neal Divine, stars Judith Haynes and Charles Conrad; Lonnie Gilbert; Mary Darling (yes, there are two female characters called 'Mary', a strange decision by any author I would say - was MacLean showing off?); Josh Hendrik;Allen; The Count; Miss Haynes; Michael Stryker and Antonio. I could go on.

There are just too many characters in this novel! Maclean does a great job of introducing them at the start of the book you think. But then he just keeps going and it is difficult to keep track - and having two Mary's, with our hero calling them each Mary dear or Mary darling begins to get very confusing very quickly. By the end of the first chapter we have our first murder by poisoning, and Dr Marlowe sets about to determine how and by whom.

Oh, Dr Marlowe. Our erudite story-teller. At first I enjoyed your witty banter, but then it started to grate on me. Then I realised he was just bloody obnoxious. I'm afraid me and Dr Marlowe just would not get on well. By the second half of the book I was hoping he was going to be the murderer.

Bear Island is trying to be a murder mystery wrapped up in a thriller. But it ends up being more like Bore Island than Bear Island. Marlowe acts like his namesake and starts to go around the ship questioning people; Where were you at the time of the murder? How do you know the deceased? Got any secrets I can wrangle out of you? Question. Long answer. Question. Long answer. Boring. Boring Boring. There is a LOT of talking heads in this novel. Something I really was not expecting from Maclean. I have to admit I nearly fell asleep baled out before the end. The only thing that kept me going was a sense of wanting to actually know what mystery there really was (I kinda guessed, but it was multi-layered), and wanting the story to get to Bear Island itself so that we could get some actual action.

So - eventually - the plot meanders its way to the island. Great. Here we go. What do we get? More talking heads in a hut. Talking heads in a bedroom. A couple of strolls out into the snow to find someone. Ooh! They've had their head smashed in, crikey! Lets all get back to the hut and talk about it. Or rather - lets all get to the hut and let Dr Marlowe talk about it. Again.

The problem with a first-person narrative, is that if the action (i.e. in this case a series of murders) does not involve the narrator, then it has to happens off stage. Not very exciting eh? Two characters set off for a communication compound to send help back to the group of people stranded in the snow with a murderer in their midst. But we don't experience that attempt because Dr Marlowe stays behind (he's too important and has to find someone to insult).

Something else that stands out in this novel is the amount of hard drinking everyone does. I've never read a book before where so many characters are alcoholic or swigging whiskey at every pause in the conversation. It's as if MacLean didn't know what to have his characters do (admittedly they are stuck on a ship or in a hut) whilst they were (endlessly) talking to each other?

The climax of the book takes place on Bear Island. But it really does not venture very far geographically. The crew lands and disembarks to a camp left over from previous settlers and that's pretty much it. You do not get very much at all in terms of exploration of the Island (barring one short scene near the finale). For a 280 page novel called Bear Island, there ain't much Island to be seen.

Overall, I was not impressed with this effort from MacLean. I can only imagine his fans were just as disappointed too in 1971. The promise of "vintage MacLean" or "edge-of-the-seat-stuff" was missing.

I can only recommended this book if you are a MacLean completist. And from what I have read about the inevitable film adaptation in 1980 starring Donald Sutherland and Christopher Lee, it sounds like the real filmakers knew they were onto a loser here, so they changed great chunks of the plot.

Bear Island is available in ebook format, as is all of Alistair Maclean novels. Most of them must be better than this.

*I had planned to review Caravan but put it back in favour of Bear Island after my wife recommended it.