Sure we have reviewed many books by this author, both his Egyptian series featuring Taita or, like this one, about the Courtneys. See, for example of the latter, A Time To Die or Assegai.
Unfortunately, unlike the above two examples, this book is not up to his usual mark. I would not have believed if someone had said that Wilbur can write a slow burn kind of book where not much happens throughout except for the last fifty pages, but this is just that kind of a book.
A young girl is targeted by a stalker in a Mick Jagger concert. When she comes out alone he tries to follow her and interrupts a Hell’s Anger biker who is trying to force himself on her in a deserted area outside the concert grounds. The ‘hunter’s’ name is Ramon Machado. The girl? Isabella Courtney, from the Courtney family that features in so many of Wilber Smith’s books.
Ramon, in fact, is being groomed as a successor to the KGB head Joe Cicero, who knows he is dying of cancer. Ramon has been asked to seduce Isabella to gain valuable intelligence that can help overthrow the apartheid government in South Africa and install a communist paradise in its place.
As a part of his plan, Ramon surreptitiously replaces Isabella’s birth control pills with a cleverly designed placebo without her knowing.
When she inevitably gets pregnant, he persuades her to keep the baby. But he cannot marry her until his current wife, estranged, gives him a divorce.
Let’s put the story aside. Just like all of the other books, Wilbur revels in a world where the men are the best in everything, animal cruelty is fine, and everyone is fun loving. And in almost all books, they are tolerant of the black people, even friends with them, and against apartheid, but really, it is the white men who live the decadently luxurious life and ‘protect’ the others under their care.
Here a bull fight – to which Ramon takes Isabella – is described in loving detail. Wilbur Smith says – through Ramon this time but almost from the mouth of all the heroes – that they make no attempt to ‘hide’ the cruelty but ‘it is just nature, darling!’. And then they forget the plight of the poor animal and enjoy the ‘sportsmanship’ of the entire ‘contest’.
I know that Wilbur Smith’s books are not the right place for an animal rights activists to be, but I noticed that in all of his books, this ambience pervades.
The one time where Ramon lost his cool and control is when he dropped his Spanish passport and Isabella found that, rather than Rome, he had gone to Moscow. His only explanation is ‘Never pry into my private affairs again!’ and she accepts it with good cheer.
Ramon discloses that even though he loves Isabella, he cannot marry her because he is ‘already married to a Catholic woman’ whom he no longer loves but she will not grant him divorce. He says that ‘later, when it is done, he will marry Isabella’.
Michael Courtney, her brother comes to London and finds Isabella fully pregnant. She confides her love for a Count to him. She also discovers that Michael is gay and likes black men as partners.
When Ramon comes back with a bullet wound and refuses to say how he got it, she meekly accepts that she cannot question him and nurses him back to health.
Michael is impressed by Ramon, especially when Ramon could wangle an interview with a hard to get dissident of South Africa in London. His name is Raleigh
Isabella reveals to Ramon the secret ‘weakness’ of Michael and Michael is trapped by the man he went to interview. He there is presented with a black male dancer who is desirable and they have sex while Raleigh watches through a one way mirror and films the entire sordid saga.
The story moves much more slowly than Wilbur Smith’s books are used to. Isabella finishes her PhD thesis – she does not seem to have to even consult anyone in her university and yet gets to defend it by going to London for just three days and passing with flying colours! She has a baby boy. Ho hum. You are supposed to get very concerned about the stupid way they are getting entangled into the Cuban communist plot to overthrow the South African (apartheid) government and install a communist utopia but you are simply irritated at the stupid carelessness. Count the ways : Even though Isabella knows that Ramon went to Russia and was angry at her for discovering it rather than explaining it, she happily lives with him in love. The nanny Adra, while being very solicitous, sulks for days when Isabella discovers she got a private mail from Cuba; again when Isabella discovers that she has extensive medical knowledge for a nanny. No smooth explanations, but Isabella simply (seems to) shrug her shoulders and get on with life.
Michael is even more stupid. When he goes for an interview and gets to meet the gorgeous black dancer, he jumps into the latter’s bed and gets himself ensnared. This is all so unrealistic that you are not as invested in the story as you could be. Though, to be fair, Wilbur has never been one for emotions – we discussed some of this in his earlier works. But this book seems to stretch it too far.
The story finally takes off when Ramon asks Isabella to come to Spain to meet him at a hotel and leave her child Damien with Adra. She does. Then she finds that Ramon is not staying at the hotel. She thinks ‘he is delayed’ and stays there for two days but when she finally gets back to London, she finds that her child is gone, the apartment is emptied and Ramon has left an envelope ‘to come over to England where she will be met by a person. Don’t talk to anyone and do as I say’. So what does she think? Ramon is in deep trouble and has been forced to write this! In her fright, she had enquired about Adra and the child with the neighbours but decides not to seek help with her brothers but exactly do as she is asked.
She goes to London, taken in a van (with no windows) and taken to an apartment. There her child is almost drowned and she is warned to be faithful to the movement or else. She is cowed and goes as an agent back to South Africa. It was indeed Ramon who orchestrated the entire thing, including the near death of his own son, and watched her reaction from a concealed place.
The story moves on where she gets the opportunity, with her grandmother’s help to rise in the ranks and really control the levers of power in South Africa’s government.
She begins passing plans of the South African government to the Communist regime, where Ramon, now that Cicero is dead; as is the habit with Wilbur’s heroes, he is astonishingly clever and impresses all Politburo members in Moscow with his plans for the success of the Communist order in South Africa.
She complies, and is rewarded with a reunion with the kid (and briefly, Ramon) after deliberate humiliation. Back in South Africa, she is asked for nuclear plans of the government – and is also chosen for the Senate by the Prime Minister, who seems to recognize her as a rising star in South African politics.
At this point you suppress a yawn. Without doubt this is one of the most boring of Wilber Smith’s books. (Even the abominable book, The Seventh Scroll reads better!). The story does not move. The great capable lady remains trapped and does everything Ramon asks, which was the plot from page one. No twists just a long, long cycle of orders and obedience. Not at all like Wilbur’s normal books full of action and surprise.
But when the story takes off, all the gore is there, if not the full plot. He describes a semi true version of how General Andom took over Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, but in this author’s telling, the plot was masterminded by Soviet and Cuban rulers and executed by Ramon. The destruction of the loyal forces and the bone chilling massacre of not only all those opposed to the takeover – like the armed military loyal to the emperor but also all nobility (to establish a communist paradise in its place) like Pol Pot did, as well as all religious leaders, Christian and Muslim who were supportive of the coup (for the future troubles they would make) are all chillingly described. Wilbur even gets into details with relish, as is the normal feature in most of his books.
Ramon goes alone and murders the emperor who was in house arrest. (Yes, there were rumours that the ailing emperor, in a house arrest in his palace – not in a dilapidated hut as in the book – was murdered).
That done, he returns to his formula. And the story drops back to the soporific descriptions. Now it is focused on Ramon’s son Nicholas. He is of course the Superman that his dad is. Stunning good looks; impeccable behaviour; ability to drive a jeep (taught secretly by a driver in the camp); ability to play soccer like Pele; mastery in multiple languages; admired and loved by all; clearly superior to the hoi polloi of the camp, though Wilber is too careful to rub it in the reader’s face. Like Isabella is strong willed, able – she made it to the highest reaches of the South African Senate -, intelligent, beautiful, clever – need I go on? Don’t even get me started on the original Superman of this story – Ramon himself.
They go from strength to strength, Ramon’s achievements piling up aided by the continued treachery of Isabella.
Then there is a fistfight between two brothers, Garry and Sean – both brothers of Isabella that sprung out of jealousy. The supposedly timid brother Garry gives a lesson to Sean by breaking two of his ribs.
And, like in most Wilbur Smith books, they seem to completely forget it, and Sean tries to trap Garry with prostitutes. Go figure. There seems to be nothing but evanescent quarrels and violence in his books and you don’t get the sense that you are dealing with real people here, just strawman caricatures of a wealthy and very proficient family where everyone excels in something or the other.
Courtney enterprises wants to arrange a nerve gas manufacture with an Italian company for South African government. Isabella pries the information out of Sasha, her dad. The Italian heiress, a widow now, arrives for hunting and the elusive unattainable aged beauty just as suddenly falls for Sasha. (Yes, another Wilber Smithism).
But there are a couple of surprises too. Elsa, the heiress and ruthless negotiator, lets a leopard that was in her sights go, because ‘she could not shoot something that was so beautiful. So unlike Smith who delights in blood and gore, the gorier the better. Also Gary explains to Bella why sanctions imposed by the Western nations on apartheid South Africa helps retain the system while pure sanction busting capitalism would eventually get rid of apartheid, as a population that gets richer will demand equality. A strange, convoluted logic, not unlike what the West thought about China when they made China prosperous by making it the world’s workshop. Both very flawed logic, as it happens.
However, the other things are all typical smith. Even when the powerful Courtneys kill and hunt at will ‘they have a limit of fifty birds per person to keep it fair and be kind to the birds’. (Yeah, tell it to the birds that died). And ‘only shots are allowed at the most difficult targets, birds that fly swift and high’. Yes, that should make it evenly matched, right? Similar to the argument he has made in other books as to why hunting, within limits, allows the animals to be culled but benefits the animals by bringing money into the ecosystem (or at least the pockets of the heroic family). No amount of trouble or oppression can keep these attention deficit people down for more than a few minutes as they romp off for hunting or having sex or violent behaviour as of there is nothing to worry.
The story by now also seems to have forgotten the trap into which Isabella has allowed herself to be caught. Yes, I know it will go back to that, but right at this point, Bella seems to be enjoying the good things in life as much as anyone else, with nary a thought about her boy who has been separated from her and who is totally under the influence of the glorious socialist and communist system.
The Courtney family, meanwhile goes hunting, fishing etc, excelling in everything and playing by the ‘rules of the sport’. So when a large Marlin is nearly at hand, Sean refuses to bag it because it is not sportsmanlike. I do understand that the Wilbur Smith audience loves to read about violence in animals and hunting by the ‘superior’ man who ‘gives them a sporting chance and really feels sad to bring down such a magnificent animal’, to modern sensibilities it still feels like slaughter using uneven tools and gadgets. (Both the splendid dove shooting of Roman and supreme fishing abilities of the other Courtneys). Anyway Sasha and Elsa grow close to each other, and given her background (wealth mainly?) the matriarch approves. She was worried that at his age, after his wife died, Sasha was ‘alone for too long’.
The story finally turns to the original plot and Bella goes on betraying both her family and her country to get a chance with her son. More of the same.
As you are about to weary at the hackneyed plot, the story turns finally. Isabella’s secret is partially known to the family as her diary was discovered by the maid. They do not know the extent of her treachery but know about her marriage to Ramon and about Nicky. They, in turn, expose Ramon’s real face, showing her that he is the mastermind of all her troubles.
When she gets the invitation to go visit Nicky, the Courtneys send a tracking device hidden in a cycle pump and mount a rescue operation to get Nicky and Bella back.
What happens next is the rest of the story.
Yes, I will admit that the book takes off and the attack happens when Ramon was with Bella and then after a very action packed battle and chase, the Courtneys manage to rescue Bella and an angry Nicky who does not want to leave his dad. Ramon escapes narrowly and is furious at Bella’s treachery, which he suspects is the only way Sean could have reached their camp with the Ballantyne troops.
They are totally devastated to learn of the extent of exposure due to Bella and set about trying to repair the damage. They first take steps to remove the Marxist half brother of Bella and Gary from the employment – Bella maneuvered to get him employed at the command of the unknown order givers. They also realize that four barrels of the nerve agent is missing and the half brother has disappeared before they could get to him.
The book ends with the same pace. But the tension is only there for the last fifty pages or so in this large book.
A typical Wilbur Smith story attempted but is somewhat weak in plot and very muted in the action scenes.
4/10
— Krishna
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