Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Neville Frankel immigrated to Boston with his family when he was 14. After graduating from Dartmouth College, he pursued doctoral work in English literature at the University of Toronto. While in Canada, he wrote The Third Power, a well-reviewed political thriller about the transformation of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
He also received an Emmy for his work on a BBC documentary, The Hillside Strangler: Mind of a Murderer. In 2002 he returned to South Africa for the first time in 38 years. Over the next decade he went back several more times, researching what would become Bloodlines.
When he's not writing, Frankel works as a financial planner and was included in Boston Magazine's 2010 list of Top Scoring Wealth Managers in the Boston Area. He also has a keen passion for painting. Frankel has three grown children and lives outside Boston with his wife Marlene.
I’d been trying to get this out of print book for years, since it was written by my friend Neville. A used copy finally came up on my Amazon watch list and I snatched it up. Now I just have to get him to sign it for me next time we cross paths ; )
This geopolitical thriller is centered in Africa but involves characters as diverse as the U.S. president, the South African president, miners, soldiers, and leaders of various factions amongst several African nations. The narrative is as immensely readable as a Michael Crichton tale, but doesn’t fall into the sort of predictable Hollywood BS Crichton was always prone to. The plot twists and turns in unpredictable but completely plausible ways, taking us to the brink of world war.