- The Dark Crusader
Infobox Book
name = The Dark Crusader
title_orig =
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author =Alistair MacLean
illustrator =
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country =United Kingdom
language = English
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genre = ThrillerSpy novel Novel
publisher = Doubleday & Company; paperback by Fawcett Crest
release_date =1961
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pages =.
isbn = NA
preceded_by =Fear Is the Key
followed_by =The Golden Rendezvous "The Dark Crusader" is a 1961 thriller
novel by Scottish authorAlistair MacLean . It was released in theUnited States under the title: "The Black Shrike" and under thepseudonym Ian Stuart; it was later republished under MacLean's own name..Plot introduction
Bentall, a British physicist seconded for
counterespionage duties, is suddenly recalled toLondon from a mission inTurkey involving the theft of information about British missiles. Eight top nuclear physicists have disappeared, after responding to eight advertisements that have been placed in newspapers, for top level scientists in different fields of research, all offering very attractive rates of pay, but with the precondition that all applicants to be married with no children. All eight scientists disappear either inAustralia , or en route there. Bentall is paired with Marie Hopeman another agent posing as his wife. NoJames Bond , Bentall is much the stumbling self-deprecating fool who gets things wrong from the start, and ends up in the position that the villains want him.Bentall and Hopeman are kidnapped at an unscheduled stop in
Fiji , but escape to Island Vardu a remotecoral atoll in the middle of thePacific Ocean . Island Vardu is currently home to Professor Witherspoon, an archaeologist of some note, but with no radio transmitter or boat scheduled to arrive for three weeks. But there is something about Dr Witherspoon that Bentall find suspicious. Soon Bentall discovers that Witherspoon is the mastermind behind a plot to build a missile -- the "Black Shrike", for an unnamed foreign power. The plot becomes even more complicated when Bentall and Hopeman find themselves falling in love even as they try to unravel a plot to steal highly classified missile technology. However, typically for MacLean, neither the female agent, nor the situation is quite as they seems. The novel really has two endings, one in which Bentall must chose between saving Hopeman and preventing the theft of a missile, and a second in which Bentall finally unravels the last details of the plot with his boss. Although not a standard literary device, the double ending packs considerable emotional punch.
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