The Devil's Alternative: Difference between revisions
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The news of the war plan comes to [[Secret Intelligence Service|MI6]] agent Adam Munro through a Russian woman he once loved, who works in the Kremlin offices and has access to the Politburo debates. This source, given the code name ''Nightingale'', shakes both the British and U.S. political leadership. Munro is forced to call on Nightingale more and more, risking the near certain discovery and execution of the woman he loves. |
The news of the war plan comes to [[Secret Intelligence Service|MI6]] agent Adam Munro through a Russian woman he once loved, who works in the Kremlin offices and has access to the Politburo debates. This source, given the code name ''Nightingale'', shakes both the British and U.S. political leadership. Munro is forced to call on Nightingale more and more, risking the near certain discovery and execution of the woman he loves. |
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Ukraine nationalists Mishkin and Lazareff, with help of Drake/Drach complicate the situation for Maxim Rudin by killing his ally in The Politburo, chief of KGB, Jurij Ivanenko. Mishkin and Lazareff are trying to escape (emigrate) from Ukraine and hijack a Russian airliner to West Berlin. They are arested because one of the pilots is shot dead during landing. Drake/Drach wants to help them because only they can reveal truth about death of KGB chief. Drake and his |
Ukraine nationalists Mishkin and Lazareff, with help of Drake/Drach complicate the situation for Maxim Rudin by killing his ally in The Politburo, chief of KGB, Jurij Ivanenko. Mishkin and Lazareff are trying to escape (emigrate) from Ukraine and hijack a Russian airliner to West Berlin. They are arested because one of the pilots is shot dead during landing. Drake/Drach wants to help them because only they can reveal truth about death of KGB chief. Drake and his Ukrainian-Canadian (specifically Crimean Tatar) comrade Arthur Crimmins (renamed from Azamat Krim), along with other multi-generationals (Americans, Germans, British) of Ukrainian origin hijack a Swedish oil supertanker built in Japan and request freedom for Mishkin and Lazareff. Western Europe states threatened by ecological catastrophe near [[Europoort]] are willing to release prisoners. |
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US president Matthews receives info from MI6-Munro-Nightingale that USSR will stop negotiation regarding grain and military concessions immediately if prisoners will be released. So there were only two options: a big ecological catastrophe that will hit many western Europe states, or a war that will USSR start against western Europe as the other solution for its grain problem. |
US president Matthews receives info from MI6-Munro-Nightingale that USSR will stop negotiation regarding grain and military concessions immediately if prisoners will be released. So there were only two options: a big ecological catastrophe that will hit many western Europe states, or a war that will USSR start against western Europe as the other solution for its grain problem. |
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Revision as of 13:07, 7 September 2011
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| Author | Frederick Forsyth |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Thriller novel |
Publication date | 1979 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| Preceded by | The Shepherd |
| Followed by | Emeka |
The Devil's Alternative is a novel by British writer Frederick Forsyth first published in 1979. It was his fourth full-length novel and marked a new direction in his work, setting the story several years in the future (to 1982) rather than in the recent past.
Plot summary
The story opens with the discovery of a castaway by an Italian sea captain. Recovering in hospital in Trabzon (sometimes called Trebizond), Turkey, the man is visited by an Anglo-Ukrainian Shipping Clerk, Andrew Drake. The castaway, Miroslav Kaminsky, is a Ukrainian nationalist who escaped from Lviv after he was betrayed to the KGB. Drake, born Andriy Drach, convinces Kaminsky that they both share the same ideal, that of striking a single blow against the Soviet Union. Kaminsky tells Drake about Lev Mishkin and David Lazareff, two Jewish Ukrainian nationalists who may be able to help him.
Meanwhile, a chain of failures at the sole plant that makes fungicide for wheat has led to the inadvertent poisoning of the Soviet Union's wheat crop. The United States is aware of this crisis and plans to sell its food to the Soviets in exchange for political and military concessions. Hardliners in the Politburo come up with a different strategy: to take the food from the West by invading Western Europe. The Politburo, led by Chairman Maxim Rudin, narrowly votes down the war plan; however, Rudin is dying of cancer and it is only a matter of time before the party in favor of war gains supremacy.
The news of the war plan comes to MI6 agent Adam Munro through a Russian woman he once loved, who works in the Kremlin offices and has access to the Politburo debates. This source, given the code name Nightingale, shakes both the British and U.S. political leadership. Munro is forced to call on Nightingale more and more, risking the near certain discovery and execution of the woman he loves.
Ukraine nationalists Mishkin and Lazareff, with help of Drake/Drach complicate the situation for Maxim Rudin by killing his ally in The Politburo, chief of KGB, Jurij Ivanenko. Mishkin and Lazareff are trying to escape (emigrate) from Ukraine and hijack a Russian airliner to West Berlin. They are arested because one of the pilots is shot dead during landing. Drake/Drach wants to help them because only they can reveal truth about death of KGB chief. Drake and his Ukrainian-Canadian (specifically Crimean Tatar) comrade Arthur Crimmins (renamed from Azamat Krim), along with other multi-generationals (Americans, Germans, British) of Ukrainian origin hijack a Swedish oil supertanker built in Japan and request freedom for Mishkin and Lazareff. Western Europe states threatened by ecological catastrophe near Europoort are willing to release prisoners.
US president Matthews receives info from MI6-Munro-Nightingale that USSR will stop negotiation regarding grain and military concessions immediately if prisoners will be released. So there were only two options: a big ecological catastrophe that will hit many western Europe states, or a war that will USSR start against western Europe as the other solution for its grain problem.
At the end Munro saves the day with the third option using secret service ways of solutions.
References to true people
The novel features many real life people with their names disguised; British Prime Minister Joan Carpenter is Margaret Thatcher (who had only recently become the PM when this novel was published); American president William "Bill" Matthews is James "Jimmy" Carter (although the fictional Matthews is finishing up his 2nd term of office in the book, while Carter was nearing the end of his 1st and only Presidential term in 1979); his Polish National Security Advisor Stanislaw Poklewski is Zbigniew Brzezinski; and Secretary of State David Lawrence is Cyrus Vance. Margaret Thatcher would later appear as herself in The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Fist of God, A Little Bit of Sunshine and Icon.