--- id: dd5451e9-22da-4b9e-8a60-7b143274e264 title: Athabasca (novel) abstract: Athabasca is a 1980 thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. The story is set in the oilfields and oil sands of Alaska and Canada, featuring adventure, sabotage, and murder within the harsh Arctic environment. It includes significant technical detail regarding oil industry operations. classification: primary: '823' secondary: - '823.914' - '338.2' udc_main_class: '8' tags: - Alistair MacLean - thriller - oil industry - Arctic - sabotage - fiction topics: - Literature - Fiction - Oil Industry author: '' created_at: '2026-06-01T00:21:31.033861' updated_at: '2026-06-01T03:29:21.185289' sources: - type: url uri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_(novel) format: url_fetch udc_label: English drama version: '1' --- ## Card: Athabasca (novel) Athabasca is a 1980 thriller novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. The story is set in the oilfields and oil sands of Alaska and Canada, featuring adventure, sabotage, and murder within the harsh Arctic environment. It includes significant technical detail regarding oil industry operations. ## Classification Primary: 823 | Secondary: 823.914, 338.2 | Tags: Alistair MacLean, thriller, oil industry, Arctic, sabotage, fiction | Topics: Literature, Fiction, Oil Industry ## Content Athabasca (novel) - Wikipedia Jump to content Main menu Main menu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 Plot introduction 2 Background 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links Toggle the table of contents Athabasca (novel) 2 languages Deutsch Nederlands Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 1980 novel by Alistair MacLean Athabasca First edition (UK) Author Alistair MacLean Language English Genre Thriller Novel Publisher Collins (UK) Doubleday (US) Publication date 1980 Publication place United Kingdom Media type Print Pages 284 pp. ISBN 0-449-24429-6 OCLC 8332476 Preceded by Goodbye California   Followed by River of Death   Athabasca is a novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean , first published in 1980 . As with the novel Night Without End , it depicts adventure, sabotage and murder in the unforgiving Arctic environment. It is set in the oilfields and oil sands fields of Alaska and Canada and includes a considerable amount of technical detail on the operations. Plot introduction [ edit ] When the operations manager of an oil company operating in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska receives a mysterious anonymous threat of sabotage, his superiors call in Jim Brady Enterprises , a firm of oilfield specialists. Dermott and Mackenzie, tough ex-field managers and now anti-sabotage specialists, arrive, but initial investigations get them nowhere. Then the operations manager is murdered and one of the pump stations in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is damaged, with further loss of life. Jim Brady himself arrives to direct operations, to no avail. Then the company's operations at the Athabasca Oil Sands in Canada are disrupted and Dermott is nearly killed. Despite assistance from the RCMP and the FBI , suspicions fall on many employees, though nothing can be proved. As bodies and equipment damage mount up, Brady and his two investigators play a hunch and finally expose the men they believe to be responsible. But even they are not the main instigators of the events, as the final chapter of the novel reveals. Background [ edit ] Producer Peter Snell, who made Bear Island , was the one who suggested MacLean set a novel in the area near Lake Athabasca . [ 1 ] Reception [ edit ] The Los Angeles Times called it "sterile, ponderous, preposterous, ungrammatical, repetitious, ridden with cliches and devoid of suspense. Banal, bromidic and bewildered." [ 2 ] The New York Times said "aside from the old master's handling of the mise en scene he is not at his best here" arguing the lead characters "are sketchily and unappealingly drawn, and the people they deal with are cardboard cutouts" although it liked the ending "So we wind up in fine style, but only after a plodding start." [ 3 ] The book became a best seller. [ 4 ] References [ edit ] ^ Webster, Jack (1991). Alistair MacLean: A Life . Chapmans. p. 216. ^ MacLean in Alaska: cold comfort Roraback, Dick. Los Angeles Times 19 Oct 1980: o4. ^ CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR: [review] Ellin, Stanley. New York Times 28 Sep 1980: A.14. ^ PAPERBACK BEST SELLERS; MASS MARKET: [List] New York Times 25 Apr 1982: A.26. External links [ edit ] Book review at AlistairMacLean.com v t e Works by Alistair MacLean Novels HMS Ulysses (1955) The Guns of Navarone (1957) South by Java Head (1957) The Last Frontier (1959) Night Without End (1959) Fear Is the Key (1961) The Dark Crusader (1961) The Golden Rendezvous (1962) The Satan Bug (1962) Ice Station Zebra (1963) When Eight Bells Toll (1966) Where Eagles Dare (1967) Force 10 from Navarone (1968) Puppet on a Chain (1969) Caravan to Vaccarès (1970) Bear Island (1971) The Way to Dusty Death (1973) Breakheart Pass (1974) Circus (1975) The Golden Gate (1976) Seawitch (1977) Goodbye California (1978) Athabasca (1980) River of Death (1981) Partisans (1982) Floodgate (1983) San Andreas (1984) Santorini (1986) Non-fiction All About Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Captain Cook (1972) Screenplays Where Eagles Dare (1968) Puppet on a Chain (1971) When Eight Bells Toll (1971) Breakheart Pass (1976) Adaptations The Guns of Navarone (1961) The Secret Ways (1961) The Satan Bug (1965) Ice Station Zebra (1968) Fear Is the Key (1972) Caravan to Vaccarès (1974) Golden Rendezvous (1977) Force 10 from Navarone (1978) Bear Island (1979) The Hostage Tower (1980, TV) River of Death (1989) Death Train (1993, TV) Night Watch (1995, TV) Air Force One Is Down (2013, TV) Related articles UNACO This article about a thriller novel of the 1980s is a stub . You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . v t e Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Athabasca_(novel)&oldid=1356186184 " Categories : 1980 British novels 1980 English-language novels Novels by Alistair MacLean Novels set in Alaska Novels set in Alberta North Slope Borough, Alaska Athabasca oil sands William Collins, Sons books 1980s thriller novel stubs Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Use dmy dates from April 2022 All stub articles This page was last edited on 26 May 2026, at 05:32  (UTC) . Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. , a non-profit organization. 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