Matthew Palmer is a twenty year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service. He has served in posts around the world in this capacity, most notably in the development of the Kimberly Process whereby diamonds from Africa could be correctly certified as to whether or not they were “conflict free.” Certainly a solid base upon which a rousing adventure yarn could be built.
We find our hero, Alex Baines, toiling in the visa line in an obscure US Embassy in Conakry, Guinea, Africa. A rising star he rises no more having watched a tribe of Africans in Darfur being wiped out by rebels and the UN peacekeeping force simply allowing it to happen and allowing his umbrage at that fact interfere with his potential success. We know he loves Africa because he has adopted a young black girl whom he rescued from the genocide.
Rescued from this oblivion and given another chance by his former mentor, he returns full of hope only to discover to his dismay that rampant corruption exists in the government of the Congolese country to which he is posted. As is the fad now among adventure writers, a US company, a mining company in this case, is deeply involved and determined to destroy all greenery within view in their desire to rip from the earth the valuable resources that lie under the ground.
Combining efforts with a beautiful young woman, Marie Tsiolo, who wishes to bring her tribal village into the 21st century by teaching them mining techniques, Alex discovers that not only is the government and the mining company corrupt and bent on ecological destruction but his mentor, the Ambassador, as a member of a shadowy group, is a guiding hand behind all this nefariousness. What is particularly egregious is that the company wants to destroy Marie’s village in its process of mining the copper.
Rebels in the pay of the mining company attempt to take Marie’s village but another rebel group assist in the defense. Perhaps I should not call the defenders rebels because rebels are warlike, piratical and untrustworthy, except, of course, for those which are our allies, who are romantic, gallant and heroic.
In any case the book does pick up in action towards the last third with a few narrow escapes and little straining to make ecological or other politically correct points. Suffice it to say Alex does well at the end, marries the beautiful girl and settles in for a calm reflective life in the saved village watching his daughter grow.
