First published 1985. Fontana, paperback, 1986, pp 320, c.105,000 words.
This is a classic Desmond Bagley thriller. It was nearly completed in 1970, immediately after Running Blind, however Bagley seems to have felt that he had written himself into a corner and couldn’t immediately find a suitable ending. He put the manuscript aside with the intention of returning to it in a year, but by then other projects had taken over his interest and he never returned to it. His wife, Joan, took on the task of completing the book after his death. Joan was well qualified, having a literary background and having been Desmond’s close confident and initial reader all his thriller-writing life.
After a rather weakly written opening, the book soon gathers pace. The journey of the juggernaut vehicle from the coast towards an inland oil field has continuous excitement. Some of the characters are complex and particularly well drawn, going through personal development: very unusual in a thriller of this type. Of course there are a few cliched figures around, but they all come with some kind of twist or back-story to lend them verisimilitude.
The African landscape is well described; something that Bagley was familiar with from his seventeen years there, mainly in South Africa. He is sympathetic to the local people – except the very bad guys. The machinations of local politics comes across as plausible. There is some similarity between the story’s setting with the history and geography of Ghana, although there are differences: oil has not been discovered in the north of Ghana, and only recently off the coast to the south.
There are very few women in this book, and only one with a significant role: a middle-aged nun. This is not unreasonable given the time in which it was written: 1970, and the setting: heavy engineering and transport, of which there are quite a few lengthy descriptions which I felt added authenticity, but might not be to everyone’s taste.
As to the ending: well it works. I could see how Bagley got stuck, and Joan’s solution is not at all bad.
Overall, this is a well-crafted thriller. It’s not a literary masterpiece, but a fine piece of escapist reading.
© William John Graham, May 2022