Simon Gandolfi about His MacLones

After writing here about The Mysteries of the MacLones, I was contacted by Simon Gandolfi (1933), writer of five (or three) novels that were based on an script for a movie or television series in the 1970s.

Simon Gandolfi wrote: ‘Yes, I wrote five books featuring Trent. The publishers gave me a rough film treatment by MacLean featuring a protagonist living on a converted tug boat, action taking place off the UK coast. I returned the treatment as unusable. The publishers then mislaid it!’

This first few sentences contain a very interesting piece of information: there appears to be an unused (or underused) rough film script, written by MacLean featuring a protagonist living on a converted tug boat and the action is situated off the UK coast. Which means a new writer can be contracted to write entirely new thriller based on Alistair MacLean’s imagination.

‘The protagonist, Trent, and the Caribbean, Central American and Asian story lines were entirely my creation. No reference to these books has been removed (carefully or otherwise) from my site or web blog,’ writes Simon Gandolfi. Still, no mention of these thrillers remain on his site or web blog. Which means that these books were never on his website at all. Now, in 2025, the entire website is defunct.

‘The MacLean Estate did not buy back the film rights – or, if they did, I was never informed and am anxious to know what proof you have as a percentage of film rights were part of my contracts; I stopped writing Trent on discovering the doubts concerning the film rights; Chris Little was the agent. I personally have no idea nor proof or information about any percentage of film rights.’

In theory, Simon Galdolfi should simply have contacted the estate of Alistair MacLean to get clarification. If the doubts about the potential film rights could be resolved much earlier, Simon Gandolfi might even have been tempted to write another novel featuring Trent. Now at 92, he enjoys his retirement.

First publication: 19 July 2017
Second (updated) publication: 20 September 2025