The Angry Mountain

One of Hammond Innes' earlier works, The Angry Mountain is a prototype, in many ways, for all the books to follow. Still suffering from the effects of combat fatigue and his imprisonment and torture by an Italian Fascist doctor in World War II, Dick Farrell seems to be making his way back in life, until the world of espionage puts a claim on him while he's visiting Pilsen, Czechoslavakia. This would be true to form for many an Innes hero, most of whom would be plucked out of their serene postwar existence into adventure and deathly challenges caused by nature. Here, the natural world awakens from its placid beauty with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, no less. Inspired by the actual eruption of the mountain in 1944, which forms part of the show more background to his own story, the destruction of all or part of four Italian villages in the 1944 explosion is something Innes manages to refashion into a desperate flight from entrapment in his fictional eruption in 1950.

The storytelling, here, is satisfying and gripping enough to make for a one or two session read of the entire novel. Somehow, Innes can do that. In the same way his protagonists are suddenly snared out of their everyday world and plunged into danger and excitement, so is the reader quickly made to feel they are along for the journey by no more than a few pages into the first chapter. show less

Excellent book, with a strong post WWII plot set against the eruption of Vesuvius. One can't help routing for principal protagonist, Farrell, although at times, I did wish that he were a bit more forceful. Farrell does come through in the end, though, bringing the story to a thrilling end. Hammond Innes' descriptions of the eruptions, white hot lava and blinding, suffocating ash are mesmerizing, terrifying. This book is a keeper.

A cracking adventure tale set against the background of a volcanic eruption. An ex-RAF pilot gets involved in shenanigans in southern Italy. Just what you would expect from Innes.