The books in this section are usually hardcover and in decent shape, though we'll sometimes offer hard-to-find books in lesser condition at a reduced price. Though we often put images of the book with their original dust jackets, the copies here won't always (or even often) have them. If that is important to you, please call ahead or say so in the order comments!
Both the "Twister", a deadly new atomic weapon, and Dr. Slingsby Caroline, director of a top-secret research laboratory have mysteriously vanished. How might the disappearance affect the passengers and crew of the S.S. Campari, a converted luxury liner?
The Campari, a haven for the wealthy and celebrated, is loading supplies in the harbor of an island dictatorship. John Carter, the ship's chief petty officer, becomes increasingly apprehensive... he sees some large crates labeled "machinery" come aboard, then three coffins, followed by an old man in a wheelchair. The cripple is guarded by two unusually husky nurses.
As the Campari steams north, strange things begin to happen—a crewman's disappearance, three murders in twenty-four hours, and sabotage. Officer Carter and Susan Beresford, a lovely redhead, who has had a romantic eye on the chief petty officer since the trip started, become involved in some of the wildest adventures ever described by Alistair MacLean.
The S.S. Campari makes a splendid background for this action-packed suspense story; for Mr. MacLean, author of The Guns of Navarone, knows the sea and how to write about it as few modern authors do.
Alistair MacLean was a Glasgow school teacher when he won a short story contest sponsored by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. His first novel, H.M.S. Ulysses, was based on his own experiences in World War II as a petty officer assigned to the Murmansk Run. After Ulysses, which is considered one of the best novels to have come out of World War II, Mr. MacLean followed with a series of highly successful adventure stories, two of which have been made into important motion pictures... The Secret Ways and The Guns of Navarone.
JACKET PAINTING BY HERVEY G. SMITH
—from the dust jacket
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