Assignment Black Gold

Sam Durell #40

by Edward S. Aarons

Cotton and Forchette were two old friends from Durell's young Cajun days who had found success in the oil business and were working on an oil rig in Lubinda when Cotton, also a part-time agent for the CIA, goes missing. The culprit was a man named Madragata, leader of a rebellion on the heels of a total victory.

190 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

AKA Paul Ayres, Edward Ronns.

Edward Sidney Aarons (September 11, 1916 - June 16, 1975) was an American writer, author of more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1962. One of these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (Dead Heat), and 30 were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote numerous articles for detective magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and Scarab.

Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree in Literature and History from Columbia University. He worked at various jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a student. In World War II he was in the United States Coast Guard, joining after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He finished his duty in 1945, having obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was Edward Aarons attempting a reset of sorts with Assignment Black Gold? For the first time in many, many novels there is hardly a connection to any previous characters or events. By this time in the series of spy thrillers featuring CIA agent Sam Durell, a fairly rich set of people, opponents as well as allies, and places had come to make getting into a Durell novel as comfortable as slipping on a favorite pair of shoes. But all those connections evaporate in this story about Lubinda, a fictional country that seems to be located culturally and geographically somewhere between Angola and Namibia. It's Sam on his own for the most part, with not even a message or two exchanged with K station HQ. As a result, some of the spice is missing from this otherwise solid adventure story. The events and action surrounding a newly independent African country facing an insurrection from Maoist guerrillas is familiar enough. But it also generates interest as Sam and company end up journeying from an offshore oil rig to remote villages in the desert and a secluded mountain where the Saka, the semi-mythical hero of Lubinda's independence dwells until recalled to save his nation from the Chinese and a new civil war. The letdown comes, therefore, not in the adventure but in the spy thriller part of the plot, which is average and predictable: people wanting power swindle each other and come out as losers. Lastly, a note about the sex scenes. In the Durell books of the 1950s and most of the 1960s, conventions for mass market pulp novels didn't allow for graphic depictions of sex. Therefore, Sam mostly alluded to it in his stories. Tastes and conventions had changed by the mid 1970s, when Black Gold was written, and now the market not only tolerated but wanted more vivid love scenes. Aarons seems to have tried to comply. But he doesn't pull it off. His passages where Sam seems to walk around with a semi erection leering after any woman in range are awkward. Aarons tries not so much to be graphic but poetic. Trouble is it's bad poetry, the sort of stuff a fourteen or fifteen year old might express. It really cheapens the novels and steals from what had been one of their greatest assets: the repressed nature of Sam's sexuality and his constant attempts to suppress his violence at the same time.

[John Peel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Close to the end of the Sam Durell series, author Aarons seems to be running out of steam. It's an enjoyable novel about the hunt for oil in a young African country, but it lacks the usual inventiveness and bite of the earlier books. One of the lesser entries in an entertaining series - but still better than most other contemporary authors.