Rocketgirl's Full Review: Jack Higgins - Thunder Point
(NOTE: This review is of the paperback version, not of the audiobook described. The book version is not in Epinions database.)
This is one of several novels I have read by Jack Higgins. His novels are generally political intrigue centered around World War II. He weaves his story around known history, but then throws in a plot twist that considers, what if one thing had gone different. Maybe one of Hitler’s men escaped, or what if a secret document was smuggled, or what if someone important in the Nazi hierarchy had been assassinated. Sometimes the stories are set in modern days but are still centered around a World War II puzzle. Such was the case with this book.
The setting takes place mainly in Virgin Islands in 1992. Henry Baker, a recreational diver, makes an exciting discovery on a remote reef: a German U-boat. He dives on the boat and finds an interesting briefcase. The briefcase contains some documents suggesting that Nazi leader Martin Bormann actually escaped Germany and fled to South America. In the briefcase is a diary that discusses his contacts and a list of Nazi sympathizers. Some of the names are shocking, including the Duke of Windsor.
Baker takes the documents to London where he knows a historian who looks at the documents. He in turn contacts the Prime Minister and discusses the matter. They decide they must find the submarine and retrieve the documents. They hire former IRA mercenary Sean Dillon to retrieve the documents. Because it seems that someone else wants the documents too. Someone that has already rigged several “accidents” that happen to people surrounding the case. But how would someone else know about the sub? Baker never told anyone where it was located. Even Dillon was going to have to use the knowledge of a local diver to try to pin it down. There must be a leak inside the Cabinet. But who? In the meantime, Dillon and Brigadier Ferguson have to try to figure out the puzzle and retrieve the documents before someone else does.
This is probably one of the best of the Higgins novels I have read so far. For one, it is much faster paced than others I have read. The main plot begins almost right away and there are no wasted pages–everything relates to the main plot. The narrative passages are relatively short, making it a fairly fast book to read. There is just enough characterization to give the background of the characters, but not so much that the story bogs down. Other Higgins novels, though intriguing, start off fairly slow and take at least a third before anything really starts to happen. I often give up on books before that long. No problem with this one though, as it got it into right away.
Most of the story is set in the Virgin Islands, mainly on St. John. This is something different, as I can’t recall any novels I have read lately, if ever, that were set there. So this was something different, as the weather and living conditions are described. Setting a story on an island also can be used as a good plot device, particularly with transportation. In this one, a small Cessna is used for inter-island transportation–and is later sabotaged. Who is trying to kill them?
I did notice some very odd phrasing in this one though. I don’t know if Higgins is British and some “Britishisms” got into the book, someone was editing for British English, or maybe it was just a bad editor. But there are MANY oddly phrased narrative passages. I’m talking about run-on sentences, and sentences spliced together with commas that are not related at all. Some of it was awkward to read as it was very disconnected. It could be distracting at times. Or I would scratch my head going “huh?” Fortunately it didn’t matter to the overall story, but was very odd to see in a published book. I would expect it in drafts or unpublished writing.
As a novel of intrigue there isn’t time for anyone to have sex in this book. Fortunately there isn’t even time for anyone to even have thoughts about it, so there is no sexual innuendo in this book at all. Higgins did throw the gratuitous beautiful woman into the story (Henry’s friend who supposedly knew where the U-boat was) and said a few passages about it that, once again, were totally out of place in an intrigue novel. But it fortunately these passages were brief and did not ruin the reading by throwing in some dumb romantic subplot into it, it just wouldn’t have fit.
There are some deaths in the book and a pretty spectacular one at the end, but nothing is graphically described. Some of the deaths are treated fairly callously, which might bother some readers. It fits the character I suppose, but is still a bit bothersome.
Small nit-picks aside, I enjoyed the book. It was fast-paced, smoothly plotted, with a satisfactory resolution. It was just the right length too, about 350 pages. Long enough to get into, but not too long to get boring.
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