Night without end door Alistair MacLean

Bookreport: Night Without End
Autor: Alistair Maclean
Stage: 6
Issued: 1960
Pages: 384

Summary:
At night, three scientists working at the polar ice-caps heard an aeroplane fly over very low over their cabin. They realise that it’s going to crash nearby. Indeed the plane crashes nearby their cabin, so they go out into the sub-zero cold to look for survivors of the crash. At the crash site they find the airplane with the tail and body still intact but with the nose smashed into the ice. Inside they find the two pilots and the third officer dead and the radio operator unconscious. They found the stewardess and nine passengers still alive.

Later on one of the scientists finds out that one of the pilots has a bullet hole in his back, now he knows that the crash was not caused by accident.  He tells this to the other scientists and they first suspect the stewardess.They have to get to the sea because they don’t have enough food for everyone and their radio is broken, so they leave the cabin with a tractor. On the way they suffer from some problems and eventually they are able to contact their colleagues with another radio. The scientists find out that it was not the stewardess and that there are multiple murderers.
Over the radio they find out that it is all about a secret targeting mechanism hidden as a portable radio that was on the plane. The other scientists go after the murders but their fuel has been made unusable with sugar and they have to filter all the fuel first. Finally, the murderers reveal themselves and they tie up the survivors and leave with the tractor, but the other scientists find them and they go after the murderers with a different tractor. Eventually the murderers are catched up and one of the murderers is killed by one of the passengers of the plane, a boxer. The othermurderer falls between two big pieces of ice that are closing and he is trapped forever.The targeting mechanism is saved and they all are picked up by the navy.

Wordlist:

There was a blizzard on the polar ice-caps.:                                                     A very bad snowstorm.

It was cold on the polar ice-caps everyone was shivering:                          To tremble from cold .

There was a maid which controlled the speed panel:                                     A female servant.  

The snake makes a hissing sound:                                                                       A sound like a long’s’.

A handbag can be portable removed:                                                           Can be easily carried.

There was a tank at a seaship:                                                                             A large container for petrol,oil,etc.

There were people who can verry fast leap:                                                  To jump or move very quickly.

There was a big crevasse on the north pole:                                                    A deep,open crack in the ice of a glacier.

There were a big group of marines on the sea:                                               A group of soldiers trained to fight on land or sea.

On the windscreen saw the pilot that they are going to crash:                   A glass window in the front of a vehicle or plane.

Other  title:
I think that ´´Survive against the cold´´ a better title is than a ´´Night without End´´, because in the story there is not one night but a lot of nights. And it was a fight between the people who try to survive when it is very cold. The story was not in the evening or the darkness, the crash occured in the afternoon. It was a very difficult race against time,cold,hunger and a killer with a gun.