Type of bind: Hardcover
EAN num: 9780091388706
ISBN number: 0091388708
Label: Hutchinson
Manufacturer: Hutchinson
Page Count: 479
Printing Date: September 17, 1979
Publishing house: Hutchinson
Sale Popularity Level: 1765102
Studio: Hutchinson
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A thriller, from the author of THE DAY OF THE JACKAL and THE DOGS OF WAR, in which the President of the USA and other statesmen throughout the world face a decision that will cost the lives of many people.
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Rated by buyers 
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Cold war crop war.
A story involving Ukrainian anti-Soviet agitators, as well as a food crisis in the Soviet union. A crop disease leaves the Soviets with a serious shortage, and the US sees an opportunity to help out, while getting some things they want in return.
Politburo hardliners don't want to do this deal with the Western devil, advocating invading some European countries and taking it by force.
A plucky MI6 contact and a Russian woman he has a relationship with try to do something about it.
Rated by buyers 
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Freddie Forsyth has been around for years but I only read day of the Jackal, my very first Forsyth, in 2005 during the Ashes. I'm a cricket man myself, but I could not put the book down. I've tried to read the thrillers in sequence since then, and this I rank alongside ' Jackal as his best at this point in the chronology. All four so far, however, are outstandingly good reads.
The plot here is multi-stranded, and its cracked open progressively like a complex and clever cypher. Each twist has knock-on consequences. There is a real sense of a timebomb ticking away with nobody knowing how long until detonation or how sensitive the explosive is.
Like other Forsyth novels (to this point certainly), it is male dominated and driven by ultra-dedicated professionals in a mysterious world unknown to most. The forensic detail adds compellability and one wonders if Forsyth was the chief founder of this documentary style.It certainly works for his writing: clipped, brisk, focused. Not a word wasted.
For all its hard-nosed focus on matters of real politique, busy activity about terrorism and espionage, and the well-drawn characters who populate the Cold War, the most compelling elements are nevertheless human ones, in short, two mini love stories. It is these the reader most cares about. The power of the personal to stir empathy is immense and Forsyth cleverly keeps these plot lines to the end to resolve. The novel transcends its time in this way.
Forsyth is very much an anatomist of power. The interweaving of the plotlines could not be more skilful and his advance plotting of the novel must in itself have been a military skill of some accomplishment. The details break down slowly like a disprin and take increasing effect. You genuinely marvel at how options are cut down for escaping from the enormity of the threat that Forsyth's central dilemma poses. This repeats the formula of his previous novels: tense and detailed build ups with a last minute denoument.
There are one or two blemishes on the paintwork. Those who know Forsyth a little will see his personal politics betrayed here, unfortunately, but this is not a cardinal sin. His failure to develop any female characters in the four novels I have read so far leaves a small question mark (but also, does he need to? I suspect so, maybe more so after this story which was written in 1979). One or two small details are not fully resolved at the close, such as Thor's wife, but this is fine as Forsyth knows the reader's imagination will bridge the gap. He does handle the final scene with apolomb and I shed a tear at this and one other scene. Big softy, me.
The pace of the novel is relentless; it's really hard to put down. The pretext of the novel is in itself both intruiging and terrifying. Truly Forsyth must be the master of this form of literary writing. Michael Crichton, in a different genre, appears to have adapted it successfully, but it is a very demanding approach. It asks a lot of the reader too. This one, like his others, repays the effort.
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I have read his work for years. Bought this so my son had something else to read beside Star War books. This is his best!!
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As someone else mentioned, this has a very tense suspense that is revealed at the last page...
The books starts off fine, goes on in a fast mood till about 200 pages, where it hits a bump. For another 50-100 pages its really slow with mind numbing details (like latitudes you never care about, places you never heard of and thought existed in Mars, and other really boring details). But once you are past about 250-300 pages, you really can't put the book down.
It tells stories happening simultaneously in America (White House), Britain (the SIS), Britain/Ukraine, and Russia. Forsyth brings his talent from "The Day of the Jackal" here to present an engaging story (except for the above mentioned shortcomings).
You will really learn too much about the political structures in Russia and America (by the middle of it, you will love America/Britain so much that you will confirm with the opinions that Russia has (before '91) one hellhole of a political structure); you will also meet people of the calibre of Lebel/Jackal (or Sherlock Holmes/Moriarty for people who haven't read Forsyth's) in "Day of the Jackal" here, but slightly more cliched. Overall, you just have to hold on in the middle and turn a few pages as he mentions the really boring details of various things (like ships, guns, countries etc) that you probably will never use or never even care about.
Other than that, this book turns out to be one of the best ever written. The last 150 pages really deserve two or more readings and the last couple of pages surpass the combined talents of many suspense/mystery writers...
Some of the political ideas expressed in the book you may not subscribe to, but definitely is good enough to know.
One hell of a book, be prepared to ignore your work, etc to be sucked into this book....
Rated by buyers 
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After turning spy fiction upside down with his very first three novels, Frederick Forsyth took a lengthy breather before returning with this, his very first foray into geopolitics. While dated in some ways with its Iron Curtain setting and talk of Ukrainian liberation, "The Devil's Alternative" remains a clever, fast-paced return to form by the then-young master.
As a grain mishap threatens the U.S.S.R. with famine, a British operative is contacted by a former lover who has acess to transcripts of secret Politburo meetings. While U.S. and British leaders deliberate over their volatile contents, a Ukrainian partisan brings the emerging crisis to a flashpoint by hijacking the world's largest tanker just off Amsterdam.
What's missing in "The Devil's Alternative" is a compelling central narrative. Not that what's here isn't compelling, but unlike the earlier Forsyth novels, there isn't one clear lead character to follow. Adam Munro, the British agent in Moscow, comes closest, but his is but one of three stories Forsyth the ringmaster puts in front of us, and Munro is not present in the two most dramatic parts, that being the hijacking of the Freya and the deliberations in the Politburo as the premier tries to fend off a power grab by zealots bent on starting World War III.
This might disorient some looking for a more straightforward thriller, but what's here is good, solid spycraft, nicely layered with Forsyth's attention to detail. The Politburo material is especially terrific, even if it consists largely of talking heads and shuffling papers. Forsyth finds that believable level of real human tension in every situation.
"The Devil's Alternative" is very much a product of its time, pre-Reagan and the "Evil Empire" speech. The focus of President Matthews, a thinly-veiled Jimmy Carter, and his mostly dovish cabinet is to keep the peace with the USSR, even if it means giving the Russians millions of tons of grain in return for hollow arms concessions. Forsyth, who is sometimes described as politically to the right of Attila the Hun, demonstrates a surprising friendliness to this realpolitik-lite approach, though he may just be making his points in more subtle ways.
Forsyth's acerbic insight into the motivations of the central players is mercilessly acute: "In his time he had learned that, in principle, politicians have little enough objection to loss of life, provided that they personally cannot be seen publicly to have had anything to do with it."
This may also be the best book in demonstrating Forsyth's cleverness with storyline. Time and again, he sets the reader up for one action and then delivers another. Even when you expect a twist, Forsyth's way of delivering them is breathtaking. Bear down especially with the last chapter, as Forsyth turns over cards you didn't even know he was playing.
There are logic gaps, as other reviewers note, and the story drags a bit more than it should at the beginning. But those who keep reading will be amply rewarded. "The Devil's Alternative" is a good alternative to nearly any thriller published today.
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