Heights of Zervos - Colin Forbes *****

Colin Forbes has always been an author that I meant to pick up and never got around to it. There have been two of his books sat on my shelves for the best part of ten years (this and The Janus Man) and for some reason I just never read them. These days I have read nearly all that Jack Higgins has to offer, I have sampled quite a few Innes, Maclean and Kyle so thought it was about time I gave Forbes a go. This book was the thinner of the two so I decided to chance it.

The book starts of as it means to go on, full of action and adventure. We find a Scottish secret agent (Ian Macomber) undergoing a sabotage operation against the Germans, things don’t go quite as expected and he is lucky to escape with his life. As he tries to leave his double life behind and evade capture he becomes caught up in a covert mission by Nazi Abwher agents to take the monastery on top of Zervos. Should they be successful it could change the entire war in Europe, with help many miles away can Macomber and his new found collaborators first avoid detection, and secondly make it to the monastery before the Germans?

The thing I love most about books like this is that they do exactly as they were intended, transporting the reader into a situation they will never find themselves in real life. Forbes is a much better writer than I had anticipated and this is really one of those ‘boys own’ type adventures where you want to keep reading to find out what will happen next. A major plus point for me was the total lack of any love story, nothing ruins an action book that some soppy chapters just thrown in because the author wants to follow a formula.

I will be reading a few more by Colin Forbes, really wish I had tried him years ago. ( )

April 1941. Op een donkere avond, enkele dagen voor de Duitse inval in Griekenland, verlaat een Griekse veerboot de haven van Instanboel, op weg naar zijn gebruikelijke doel - de golf van Zervos.
Een blik op de passagierslijst verraadt de aanwezigheid van vier Duitsers en twee Britten. De situatie aan boord is gespannen. De zes mannen zijn tenslotte vijanden, hoewel ze zich nu op neutraal terrein bevinden.

Dan opeens, wanneer de lichtjes van Instanboel in de verte verdwijnen en het weer verslechtert, verandert het schip in een gruwelijk gevechtsterrein

"The downward gradient increased as he pressed his foot harder and prayed - prayed against two catastrophes ..." - April 1941 - the monastery on the heights of Zervos takes on a crucial new significance as the Germans prepare to invade Greece. A Scots secret agent, a Greek patriot and two English soldiers face tremendous odds as they race against time to dent crack Nazi troops, the use of this vital observation post. The action begins at sea and continues non-stop overland in a murderous mind-killing creep up the ice-bound mountain, culminating in a sensational, breathtaking, nail-biting finish ...Colin Forbes. "Has no equal" - "Sunday Mirror".