Rating: 
Summary: Exceptional novel
Review: What an excellent book this is. In reading the reviews you may become confused as several reviewers have in fact reviewed the film, which was also very good, but very different. In fact, the last third of the film really has little to do with the last third of the novel.We get to know Holland's characters and in the end there is a lot of redemption. Charles' step-father Barry really sums it up when he speaks of McLeod and says "his other talent for salvaging flawed and fallen creatures. Himself included." The book has lots of examples of the classic struggle of man against himself. A book review should not really spend too much time comparing books and film. However, in this case its worth looking at both the film and the book. The book of course, published in 1972, was not subject to the modern North American tendency to run literature and film through a moral filter. The film, excellent in its own way did just that, I believe, and therefore we get a very different final third. The "man against-himself struggle" of the novel is replaced in the film with a "man against man/or society struggle" as McLeod is wrongly accused by the unjust "group". The latter is just little too Hollywood and the former made for better literature. This is a quick read and I highly recommend it.
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