A movie production company heads off to Bear Island, a remote island in the Arctic off the north coast of Norway. Mystery, suspense, murder and mayhem ensue, almost as soon as the boat has left Britain. No one on board the ship to Bear Island is quite what he or she seems to be...and things only get more dangerous once they actually get to the island.This book was a total mixed bag for me. There were some things I liked, and there were a lot of things I couldn't stand. I'll start with the things I liked.The settings were, by far, Bear Island's greatest strength. Both the ship, the Morning Rose, as well as the forbidding Bear Island itself. That's what piqued my interest when reading the plot synopsis, originally: the danger and adventure of exploring a remote, forgotten island in the Arctic. It called to the adventurer and explorer in me, and in that I was not disappointed. The Morning Rose was described in detail, with an attention to things nautical that was entertaining to read without being too technical. And the island itself held its share of interesting things...as I'd hoped it would.The exploration, too, was top-notch. Both on the ship, and on the island. There is plenty of adventure, and some poking around (okay, snooping) that was pretty fun to read. And the discoveries found when sneaking around were pretty interesting, too.But that being said, there was a lot that didn't sit well with me, and it's not just because of the book's age (it was written in 1971).First - the overbearing sexism was enough to make me want to put the book down, more than once. I almost didn't make it through the first fifty pages, but I made myself stick with it, hoping the storyline itself would improve. And the story itself did entertain, and the middle part is a little less sexist than the rest, though it rears its chauvinistic head at the end again in a few ways that made me want to throw up. Yeah, I know, this was 1971 and things were different then. I get that. But it was 1971, not 1571, for heaven's sake. I have read a lot of books that were written before 1971 which feature good, decent roles for female characters. I hesitate to use the word "strong" because it seems like that has almost become un-politically correct these days...which is a separate topic of discussion altogether...personally I like strong, human, female characters...or male characters, for that matter.But out of a cast of characters so huge, and so many of them only vaguely described that I had a very difficult time keeping them all straight, there were only three female characters, and all of them were written with such contempt and derision that I can only deduce that it is a reflection of the author's view on women. There's the haughty prima donna who is prone to fainting and who retires to her bedroom with her two pooches (can we say STEREOTYPE!), there's the mysteriously alluring foreign woman who is hiding a few dark secrets (wow, that's never been done before...) and then there's the "pretty little ugly girl" who, despite the clunky, dorky glasses, is a total knockout in the looks department and just happens to have blonde hair, too (boy, that's never been done before, either!)To make matters worse, two of the three are named Mary, which results in the "protagonist", Dr. Marlowe, referring to them as "Mary dear" and "Mary darling" to distinguish them. Of all the condescending things I've read, that has to be one of the worst. And in James Bond fashion, one minute Marlowe finds them annoying and vapid and useless, and the next he feels affectionate for them and wants to comfort them. The author actually takes the insult one step further and compares one of the female characters to a beloved pet at one point. That is NOT acceptable, no matter what time period this was written in. Ugh!!Surprisingly, there isn't anything but the vaguest hint of sex in the entire book...but judging by the author's obvious contempt for women, I'm glad there isn't any sex because I wouldn't even want to see how he handled such scenes.Next up is my dislike of the "protagonist", Dr. Marlowe. I use quotation marks because I actually think I disliked him more than I disliked the antagonists. Marlowe is an insensitive jerk, and as a doctor, his bedside manner is appalling. Most of the time he vacillates between being this savvy, experienced, know-all wise guy one moment, and an ignorant oblivious moron who has no idea what's going on around him the next. You can't "have it all confidently figured out" one moment and then be perplexed and unnerved the next because the events unfolding don't make any sense to you. It just doesn't add up.(view spoiler)[And then there's the "unreliable narrator" bit, which is even more over the top! I don't mind an unreliable narrator...when done well, it brings an added angle of surprise to a story and can make a pretty decent "twist" to things, turning on its head everything the reader perceives...but the key words here are when done well, and in Bear Island it was definitely not done well. There are no hints whatsoever that something may be going on behind the scenes. It's like, one minute Marlowe is a confused doctor on board a ship, grasping at straws and trying to figure out why his fellow passengers are trying to murder each other, and when Smithy asks him to level with him, Marlowe doesn't dare because he doesn't know Smithy and can't trust him...and then, WHAM, in the next breath Marlowe is a secret government agent who was sent to rendezvous with Smithy and he knows every detail of Smithy's life and knows exactly what's going on on the ship. Except wait, he doesn't know any of those things, and he's trying to figure out why the people on the ship would murder each other, but with his secret agent knowledge he has the whole thing figured out and he knows who the murder is...only he doesn't have the whole thing figured out and is just pulling guesses out of thin air and hoping they're right...but in the end he really did know it all from the very beginning.BLEH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (hide spoiler)]
Not one of MacLean`s best; the fact that all of them were the bad guys is not very surprising, no real revelation like his other books.
Do You like book Bear Island (2009)?
This book was published back in 1971, but some include it among the best from this well known author who also penned “The Guns of Navorone”, “Ice Station Zebra” and “Where Eagles Dare”. It is a mystery with an interesting twist, told through the voice of Dr Marlowe. He is the medical man working for a film crew who are destined for Bear Island, an isolated setting in the Barents Sea where they will film scenes for a movie. There has been much secrecy surrounding this film and the screenplay has not been viewed by the actors yet, only the producer and the screen writer have seen it. The island seems a strange and formidable place to film a movie as there are only a few hours of daylight each day. That would make it not only a very a bleak and inhospitable set for a movie crew but isolated from outside help in the event of mechanical breakdown or a dire medical emergency. Marlowe’s assignment is also rather curious and we are never clearly told how he ended up with this interesting medical assignment, just given a quick rather cursory statement of “something to do with the navy and insubordination”. The cast and crew are travelling in “Morning Rose”, a converted fishing trawler making its way through stormy seas when suddenly people begin to die from mysterious circumstances. Three deaths en route are followed by even more deaths when they land on the cold and very desolate island. The island itself seems like a frozen purgatory and Maclean has been masterful in writing about the settings on both the trawler and on the island. You can almost feel the cold and see the snow and ice. There is a large cast of characters, some of whom are only briefly sketched, so it is a challenge to keep track of them all. In addition, two of the female characters are called “Mary”, one is “Mary Dear” the other “Mary Darling” and that simply adds to the confusion.There is a lot of whiskey drinking in this tale, and at times you wonder how any one remains standing with all that liquor they pour down their throats. The other event that is repeated endlessly is the boiling of water which humoursly seems to be an absolute necessity for Marlowe to render any semblance of first aide. As the tale unfold, Marlowe seems to be working as an amateur detective and through a process of deductive reasoning proposes different theories of what is going on. He drops interesting hints that he knows more than what we see going on, or what he suspects is going on and he always seems two jumps ahead of the reader. This is at first a little frustrating, as the reader wonders why Marlowe is so far ahead of us in getting to the bottom of the mystery. But it is an interesting literary device which makes more sense as the story continues. This plot has several layers and there is no way the reader can unravel it, because he never has enough information to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Again, some may find that very unsatisfying as most mystery readers try to figure out the puzzle themselves before the solution is presented to them. An entertaining read which is more a mystery than a thriller.
—Paula Dembeck
I can't say I loved this book, but I enjoyed it for the most part. I read quite a few of Alistair MacLean's novels years ago, and I remember Ice Station Zebra being one of my favourites. Mysteries that take place in remote, isolated places where the cast of characters is fairly small and diverse and the plot is complex enough to get your little gray cells working really appeal to me.The mystery in this one was almost too complicated, though, and it required a rather lengthy explanation by the narrator, Dr. Marlowe, to unravel it. Mr. MacLean did a pretty good job of creating suspense, drama, and chills (literally, as one could almost feel the Arctic wind and snow plaguing the trawler and Bear Island). It seemed that nearly everyone in the film making crew had secrets and were not who they claimed to be, not even the good doctor, which made for some very interesting conversations and revelations.Perhaps not one of Mr. MacLean's best, as the pace dragged a bit in places, but quite an enjoyable offering nevertheless for those who are fans of these types of mysteries.
—Cheryl Landmark
