There are two thriller writers whose work never fails to give me pleasure no matter how many times I reread their books. One is Alistair MacLean; the other is Jack Higgins. Not long ago I was in the library looking over their shelf of sale books, and I saw a three-in-one volume of Higgins' work. The books included in it are The Last Place God Made, The Savage Day, and Toll for the Brave. I have all three of them in their first U.S. paperback editions, but how could I pass this up for a buck? The answer: I couldn't.The Last Place God Made is set in Brazil in the late 1930s. Neil Mallory is a bush pilot who's finally put together enough money to get back to England. Unfortunately for him, it's stolen by a prostitute and Mallory has to accept a job from Sam Hannah, another pilot, who has a contract to deliver mail and perform other services for the government. Hannah was an Ace in WWI, and he's the best pilot Mallory's ever seen. It's quite lucky for him that Mallory came along because he desperately needs another pilot to help him. Without help, he'd lose his contract.
What ensues is high adventure in the vein of a western novel, with the indigenous people this time being Brazilian. They've attacked a church, killing a number of nuns, two of whom are unaccounted for. Another nun, along with the beautiful sister of one of the missing women, shows up, and Mallory and Hannah are drafted to go to the church and try to find the women.
There's a lot of flying, plenty of fighting of all kinds (though I don't recall either Mallory or Hannah using a bow as depicted on the cover of the first Fawcett paperback). More than once in his novels, Higgins uses a younger man and an older, slightly corrupt, one paired together in a dangerous enterprise. It seldom works out well.
If you like good writing and just plain entertaining fiction, you can't go wrong with Higgins, and that certainly holds true for The Last Place God Made.
18 comments:
I don't think I've read anything by Higgins, though that seems almost impossible, given his output.
Obviously a favorite of mine.
The earlier ones are all good and to be preferred over some of the newer books, but in general you can't go wrong with Patterson/Higgins/Fallon/Marlowe/Graham.
Jeff
I haven't read any of the recent ones, but I love the older stuff.
I'm with Jeff on the quality of the older Jack Higgins (Patterson/Fallon/Marlowe/Graham) novels over the more recent novels.
In the old days going around England I always looked for the books that hadn't been published in the US. I don't know about now but in those days several of the early Patterson and other books hadn't been published here.
Whoops - that was me, of course.
Jeff
Bill, one of my favourite novels by my favourite author. I read MacLean in college and still do even now. Their books have had the highest number of film adaptations. Both are equally entertaining.
I agree, and I'm glad I don't have to choose between them.
OK Bill, I'll try one. Which one?
One of my favorites is TOLL FOR THE DEAD, which is also in this 3-in-1 volume. I'm going to re-read it soon and see if it holds up.
I really like Higgins' early work; specifically the novels he wrote before the EAGLE HAS LANDED. Although anything pre-1990 is pretty good. My favorites are EAST OF DESOLATION, SAVAGE DAY, and A PRAYER FOR THE DYING.
Ben
Those are great. I'm re-reading SAVAGE DAY at the moment. It was the first one I read under the Higgins name back around '74.
Prashant's enthusiasm for Higgins and MacLean has encouraged me to try some but haven't yet. I must have read some Higgins in my youth, but that was long ago. I will aim at the earlier books first and see if this one is to my taste.
You can hardly go wrong with early MacLean or early Higgins.
I enjoy Higgins. I find myself in almost any book trying to match something up with the cover, usually doesn't work. Another favorite is Jim Butcher's "Dresden" series. The covers are great and always show Dresden wearing a hat, which he makes a point of NEVER doing in the books, lol. (He may have, one time, shortly in one story.) Anyway, good read!
The opening line of SAVAGE DAY is fantastic: "They were getting ready to shoot somebody in the inner courtyard, which meant it was Monday because Monday was execution day."
I'm actually reading the early Higgins in order. I started about a year ago, and I'm about halfway to THE EAGLE HAS LANDED. I'm really looking forward to his James Graham, and earliest Jack Higgins titles.
Ben
The first James Graham book I read was A GAME FOR HEROES. I hadn't read more than three of four pages before I'd decided that Graham was Higgins.
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