Floodgate, by Alistair MacLean

An un-thrilling thriller.

The premise is interesting enough- terrorists are holding the Dutch to ransom, threatening to breach dykes and canals and flood the country. A top Amsterdam detective and two undercover cops are the best hope of stopping them in time.

But all the action happens off-page, and the reader is left with a tension free trudge, as coincidence is piled on coincidence, and the threat is rendered ever more laughable. Even worse, plot development was mostly delivered by way of long, stilted, info-dumps of dialogue as one character after another explained the reasons for their actions or showed off just how cleverthey were for figuring something out.

I kept reading to the end, in the hope that the story would shift up a gear and provide a worthwhile climax.

It didn’t.

From:: Ian Pattinson Goodreads reviews