The Way To Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean

JetBlackDragonfly
18 hours ago
2 min read

This 1973 thriller from Alistair MacLean is not one of his best. An extreme difference in language from his other works makes it seem ghostwritten.

Grand Prix racer Johnny Harlow is thrown clear of the explosive cartwheeling crash; a rival driver is killed. His Formula One vehicle flips into his own pit crew - including owner-manager Rory MacAlpine, No. 2 driver Traccia, chief mechanic Jacobson, MacAlpine's daughter and son, and journalist Alexis Dunnet. The facts show driver error - unbelievable from the world's best driver, winner of five Grand Prix victories. Harlow seems past the limit of endurance into ultimate defeat, ostracized by the association. Famous for never touching alcohol, he shows signs of binge drinking, intoxicated every day yet still recklessly breaking lap records. Towards the German, Austrian, and Italian races, he will drive one final Grand Prix in Marseille. But all is not as it seems. Harlow has discovered saboteurs bent on derailing his respected racing team. Working with New Scotland Yard, Harlow becomes a knife-wielding agent to rival Bond, breaking into Sicilian mafia headquarters to foil an international heroin ring. This racing mystery becomes one of espionage, stolen diamonds, and danger.

Written between the excellent Bear Island and Breakheart Pass, MacLean shows his prowess for plot. This was written as a screenplay before being novelized, and it is known he passed stories at that time to ghostwriters. This may explain the very un-MacLean language and sentence structure, like someone ran it through the thesaurus machine. Overly verbose, it has been called a parody of his own work, not missing a single cliché. MacLean readers will notice a distinct difference in this poorly written and unbelievable novel, but for an action thriller, the plot still stands up, and I was entertained despite myself.

Unproduced for film, it became a TV movie in 1995.

The Way to Dusty Death is widely available, including for free on Internet Archive.

1973 / Tradeback / 256 pages