I've read some great books by Jack Higgins, others that were quite reasonable, but not worth adding to my permanent library. This was the first time I've read one that was frankly poor. So OK, if you just read and never think about how likely it is, you might still like it, but really...SPOILER ALERT: Our heroes know that the opposition are murderous, Dillon has already been run off the road and shot at, the nastiest one has dropped rotting fish bait over where they were diving in order to attract sharks, and yet they blithely go to the restaurant on the baddie's island, leave the airplane in the dark, alone, and have a nice dinner and discussion with Santiago (the Big Baddie.) Is it a surprise that the plane was sabotaged? When I should have been on the edge of my seat wondering whether they'd survive the plunge toward the ocean, I wandered off to do the ironing! It seemed to me they deserved to die.What else? Only a few people knew what they'd found, yet the baddie knew straight away. They didn't even bother speculating who'd told him or trying to do anything about it! Just kept feeding information straight to the traitor.And then, which I thought quite criminal, they left the innocent girl unwarned, even when by that stage, there had already been a successful murder or two, and she'd already been attacked. It is no thanks to these idiot 'heroes' that she survived the inevitable encounter, though badly injured and having been tortured. They didn't even apologise to her. They were almost as responsible for the attack on her as the Baddies, it seems to me.I know that arrant stupidity is often accepted in light romances, but asking the reader to tolerate it in what should have been a first-class thriller is asking too much. I'm going back to reading more Indie writers. Technically, their writing may not be so good sometimes, but at least one can be reasonably sure that they're trying.I do not think that Jack Higgins was trying.
I really enjoyed listening to the Audible book. The narrator was very skilled at providing voices for each of the characters including the dialects that Dillon chose to use. The book opens at the close of WW II in Hitler's bunker. He has given a briefcase with money, numbered bank accounts in several different countries, a list of high ranking Nazi sympathyzers from other countries, and the Windsor protocol to Martin Borrman with instructions that he is to leave and keep the dream alive in South America. Fast forward to 1992, when an ex-pat Englishman diving off the coast of the Virgin Islands finds a German U-boat and a captain's briefcase and journal telling about another briefcase onboard. When he travels to London to tell his friends in Intelligence what he has found, this sets off a search involving Dillon a mercenary for hire on the British side as well as a not so friendly opponent also searching for the briefcase for his own purposes.If you enjoy tightly written thrillers that practically read themselves, this is the one for you. This was a re-read for me. I took in on a family trip and my father who is not much of a reader kept wanting to go out on little day trips so that we could finish the book. He absolutely loved the book and the character of Dillon.
What do You think about Thunder Point (1994)?
A friend gave me this and I did not hold out very high hopes for it, but I found it more interesting and compelling than I had expected. The main characters were fairly rounded and their relationships explored to some extent, whilst retaining its main thrust of action thriller. It did not rely on surprise or being unable to anticipate the events but yet managed by pace and skillful writing to carry one along with the story. OK the intelligence agents show little intelligence, but I suspect this is fairly true of many agents. Fast action and some good underwater settings.If I came across another Jack Higgins I would be tempted to read it.
—Gill
Before Sean Dillon books became the literacy equivalent of a sausage machine churning out the same thing over and over again, they were actually pretty good. ‘Thunder Point’ is the second in the Dillon series and it works because it does not feel yet as if Jack Higgins was planning to flog the books until the apocalypse. In the timeframe of ‘Thunder’, Dillon is not yet one of Ferguson’s allies and instead starts off as a mercenary. This novel explains how he jumped from being IRA man to British undercover, but does it with the stylish bravado that is Higgins at his best.The book opens like so many of the greats from the author – in Nazi Germany. One of the leading Nazi’s escapes with details of the people that helped them rise to infamy, but he and the briefcase are lost at sea. Leap to the present day and an amateur diver finds a lost submarine that contains a deadly secret. Dillon is tasked with finding the submarine and briefcase. Easier said than done when you have some modern day National Socialists on your case.‘Thunder’ is a book that is packed with great set pieces and the bloke action that Higgin’s was once a master of. At this point, Dillon is still somewhat of an enigma and not over worn. Reading about the talented Irishman as he takes out the baddies is great fun, you get the sense that he is a killer who is just starting to grow a conscience. Like many Higgins books, the female characters are underwritten and the dialogue can be farcical at times, but this is part of the twisted charm of the books. ‘Thunder’ is a book from a different era that is a great ride, but also a guilty pleasure.
—Samuel Tyler
No, 2 in the Sean Dillon series has Brigadier Charles Ferguson arranging Dillon's release from prison and an impending firing squad in Yugoslavia to work for him in the recovery of Documents found in a sunken German Submarine in the Virgin Islands. The British want the Documents which contain among other things the names of high ranking British Nazi sympathizers. Others are after the papers as well and the usual fights and chases ensue. I have found Higgins' books to always be readable and I have a found a trove that I haven't yet read.
—Bob
