The Devil’s Alternative
By Frederick Forsyth
The fourth book by Frederick Forsyth, who has fast become an author of high renown with me.
I picked up The ODESSA File in February, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and watched the film.
I picked up The Day Of The Jackal in May, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and watched the film.
I picked up The Dogs Of War in June, read it in a couple of days, loved it, and hang my head in shame that I’ve just had to use Wikipedia to confirm that there is a film. That’s one to watch later.
Anyway, it seems that there’s a running theme. And it continued with this one, minus the ‘couple of days’ reading time. Stretch to three for this badboy.
Unlike Forsyth’s other books, this one is set in the future. This confused me at first, seeing as it clearly said in the lining that the publishing date was 1979, yet he was very well describing 1983. Maybe events really were so predictable heading into the 1980s, with the exception of casting Jimmy Carter as president rather than Ronald Reagan. Joan Carpenter is a very convincing Margaret Thatcher; I sense that Forsyth is an admirer.
The Dogs Of War was notable for having several separate threads weaving together at the same time, the way that they all merge to form a tapestry only clear at the end. The same is true here in The Devil’s Alternative”, shorthand for “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
The story opens with a body floating in the sea, found by an Italian skipper. He’s taken to Turkey and is eventually revealed to be a Ukrainian nationalist who had been betrayed by the KGB.
A London banker takes immediate leave to go on holiday. In reality, Andrew Drake is Andriy Drach, a man of fervent nationalist spirit. He sees the arrival of Miroslav Kaminsky as a godsend, and hatches something big that will strike a blow against the hated Soviet Union. This is later revealed to be the assassination of the head of the KGB, the death of whom is covered up by the USSR, in an attempt to maintain the illusion of immortality and quell any thoughts of revolution.
Unfortunately for the Soviets, the two murderers escape and flee to what they think is West Germany, whence they’ll hold a press conference in an urge to generate a revolution by their fellow Ukrainians. The wily pilot, however, lands in East Berlin, paying the price of his life when the hijackers work out what he’s done and panic. Bad news for them: They’re now murderers and sent to jail.
By this point, we’re several threads into the story.
We’ve already spent time in the Oval Office, where satellite research has shown that the Soviet wheat crop is about to fail. (There was some production fault in a factory, which got out and infected the crop.) The US plan to sell their surplus to the Soviets, seeking political and military concessions for doing so. They are aware through their spies that the Soviet hardline faction in the Politburo has other ideas: they’ll invade Europe.
Seemingly unrelated, a millionaire plans to build the world’s largest oil tanker.
The stories all come together. The Ukrainians launch an assault on the vessel, threatening to dump one million tonnes of oil into the North Sea if the two hijackers are not sent to Israel, where they’ll be able to announce the death at their hands of the hated head of the KGB. The Russians won’t let this happen and despatch an agent to have them assassinated in jail.
The Americans and Brits are caught between a rock and a hard place. Either they assist the Soviets and defeat the Ukrainians to avoid the fall of the Maxim Rudin, party chairman, ailing in health and support, a fall which would cause the hardliners to take over and launch their war on Europe; or they allow the ecological disaster to occur.
Anyway, Forsyth presents this whole thing much more dramatically than I do; I don’t really do it justice at all.
I’d have to say that he has hit four for four. I don’t believe any other author I know has that success rate with me. I guess that qualifies him as my favourite writer. Irrespective of my support, Forsyth is a master at his trade.
Tags: Frederick Forsyth