Alan McQueen

When it comes to writing military intelligence, covert operation styled thrillers there have been some particularly well known authors over the years.  Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton come to mind immediately.  Until Mark Abernethy created Alan (Mac) McQueen, there have been fewer options to choose from set in this part of the world, seen from an Australian perspective.  Mac is our super-spy, the covert operative who knows everyone, works in our geographical region, is fearless in pursuit of the goal of whatever operation he's sent on, and frighteningly able to land himself in extremely deep water at just about every outing.

COUNTER ATTACK finds him dispatched to Singapore to oversee just such a covert mission.  Which goes pear-shaped.  Which takes Mac from there to Saigon, and onto the former killing fields of Cambodia, all the while dodging the bad guys, and the good guys (they are somehow interchangeable yet again).  Along the way he meets up with new allies, some old compatriots and uses every ounce of his nous, guile, guts and glory to avoid yet another world-wide crisis.

The fourth in the Alan McQueen series, these books are exactly what the covers are trying to tell potential readers.  Big action, loud explosions, much rushing about, Mac-jep (well everyone-jep really), adrenaline fuelled, maniacal action, badder than bad baddies and a resolution by the skin of the world's teeth.  We're talking thrillers here - we're definitely not talking nuanced and considered psychological analysis, although Mac isn't just an Energiser Bunny about everything.  He has a wife, children, people he cares about, people he feels guilty about, people who can make him doubt himself, feel responsible.  He is, however, refreshingly bullet-proof for a man of his age.

Aside from the character of Mac who is not just a man's man, he's dangerously close to a bit of a SNAG sometimes, part of the attraction of these books is that the action does take place in our region.  The settings are moving around from book to book, throughout Asia, backwards and forwards out of Canberra - the politics, the military, the relationships with our immediate neighbours are woven into the action in the books in what feels like a a very realistic manner.  There's a fair bit of tongue in cheek dialogue along the way, as well as quite a bit of blokey talk which personally I found quite realistic, but which could provide an unexpected tone for anybody who thinks that Australian's under pressure are all going to sound like Crocodile Dundee....

I've always been a fan of the Mac series.  Whilst they are exactly what they promise to be - big, bold, loud, mad, bad and slightly out of control, there's a little bit more than that.  There are some nice little human touches, there's more than just Mac in the character line up and then there's the localised settings which are the icing on the cake.  Even with the reoccurring character set, you wouldn't have to have read the earlier books in the series to dive into COUNTER ATTACK.  But summer's on the way and these are perfect lazy summer day reads - so why not catch up with Mac in the earlier books and really get an idea of where he's coming from?

I really really really hope that, in particular, local fans of spy and espionage thrillers are reading Mark Abernethy's terrific series.  Firstly because each of the stories is set in our own region, and secondly because Alan McQueen is such a quintessential Aussie bloke hero type.

Of course, just setting books in our region or taking current day events as a basis for your books doesn't qualify them as must reads.  What does that for DOUBLE BACK and the earlier books in the series is that they are extremely good layered high-action thrillers.  

Part of the attraction of the books is Alan 'Mac' McQueen who is just about bullet-proof, but with a heart and human foibles.  He's the sort of bloke that would appeal to men and women equally - fearless but not stupid about it, caring but not woosy about it, loyal but not in the face of upper echelon idiocy, Mac is an extremely good central character to weave the plots around.  What also works is the settings and timeframes into which Abernethy drops MacQueen.  In the case of DOUBLE BACK we are deep into the time leading up to the Indonesians being forced out of Timor.  What's particularly scary is that you really have to hope that the scenario the author builds is purely fictional as it's chillingly realistic and frighteningly brutal.

But this is a military style thriller, so there is a lot of rushing about, a commensurate amount of sneaking about, and a lot of shooting and shouting.  There are some great bit players in the cast - and there's some very realistic and quite funny dialogue amongst them all.  Because this is such a good thriller there is also quite a good sense of place - the jungles of East Timor are dark, dangerous and damp.  The towns and cities littered with sinister types with an oversupply of sunglasses.  

DOUBLE BACK really is a terrific thriller - fast paced, with a good and very realistic plot.  The sense of menace is particularly poignant knowing the history of the East Timorese struggle against the Indonesian army, and the scenario that Abernethy builds into the plot is particularly chilling.  Having only recently gotten hold of DOUBLE BACK I was particularly pleased to see that the next book in the series COUNTER ATTACK was released in January 2010.  Excellent!

SECOND STRIKE is the second thriller starring Alan (Mac) McQueen, although this particular book brings the actual action a lot closer to home than the first - GOLDEN SERPENT.  Readers who find books set in recent events uncomfortable, may struggle a little as SECOND STRIKE starts off in Bali - in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Kuta that killed over 200 people in 2002.  Mac is called in to help the investigation teams, joining the elite unit of spies and soldiers tasked with hunting down the terrorists implicated.  Despite a hot pursuit, the terrorist ringleaders avoid capture.

Five years later, Mac is back in Indonesia, still involved in espionage but this time in something a little less physical, when bullets start to fly and it seems the old foes have returned.  Mac finds himself compelled once again into the role of lone hand as he struggles to stop whatever the ringleaders are up to this time, and deal with the complacency and traitors in his own ranks.

SECOND STRIKE is every bit as action packed as GOLDEN SERPENT.  In fact the action rarely lets up, although there are some "quieter" times thoughout the book mostly with brief interludes into Mac's happy, almost idyllic personal life.  Of course this is a thriller though, so there's an ever present sense of menace even in the personal life as Mac's wife continues her own job which produces its own threats, over and above anything that Mac might drop the family into.

As confrontational as the starting point of the Bali bombings may be to some, they, and the very Australian stylings of the main characters in this book provide an interesting local sensibility for SECOND STRIKE.  Right down to the ultimate threat at the end of this book, there's no doubt that the central characters in this book are local, that the threat is to Australia and the region in which we all exist and the reaction is also rather Australian.  Sure it's a bit over the top, Mac is one of the original energiser bunny types with seemingly unending energy, the ability to continue no matter how much physical damage he suffers during the battle, and possessed of an almost super-natural ability to see the plot when all about him are oblivious. 

For a long time now, military, spy, intelligence thriller readers in these parts have had to feed their addiction with a hefty dose of English and American writers.  Abernethy has written two books now that take that concept and dress it nicely with a great Australian sense of dry wit and irreverence. 

Perhaps it's just my somewhat shaky understanding of things technical, but there are a few occurrences which didn't quite make sense (how can they block radio and mobile signals and still have working police radios?).  There is a tad too much of the idyllic personal towards the climax of the book which might have been designed to increase the sense of what could be lost, but all it did for me was destroy a lot of the pace.  Particularly frustrating as what was about to come wasn't that hard to pick and I just wanted to get back "into it!".  Minor quibbles in what is, for the most part, one of those great escapist, fantastic thriller rides where the baddies are particularly dreadful and the goodies slightly flawed and the world is saved from the unthinkable ... just.