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Dubai
Lieutenant Colonel James Fitzroy Lodd is a modern day soldier of fortune whose misinterpreted Arab leanings have cost him his Army career yet earned him the protection of Shaikh Rashid, ruler of the tiny oil shaikhdom of Dubai. From the back room of his semi reputable establishment, the Ten Tola Bar, Lodd orchestrates some high risk business ventures guaranteed to parlay an Army pension into very high the smuggling of gold across the Arabian Sea to Bombay, the conversion of five hundred million Petro dollars into Arab control of the US communications media, and a desperate attempt to break an international oil cartel that could cost Lodd everything... including the very beautiful woman that he loves. Moving from top echelon government and financial circles in New York and Washington, Lodd, and Tehran to the wilds of the Arabian Peninsula., Dubai combines Robin Moore's usual thrilling ways with romance and suspense with his specialized knowledge of the Middle East.
504 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Robin Moore
93 books44 followersRobert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an writer best known for his books The Green Berets: The Amazing Story of the U.S. Army's Elite Special Forces Unit,The French Connection: A True Account of Cops Narcotics and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.
Moore also co-wrote the lyrics with Barry Sadler for the Ballad of the Green Berets, which was one of the major hit songs of 1966.
At the time of his death, Moore was residing in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (home to Fort Campbell and the 5th Special Forces Group) where he was working on his memoirs as well as three other books.
During World War II he served as a nose gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions in the European Theater of Operations. Moore graduated from Harvard College in 1949.
Thanks to connections with fellow Harvard graduate, Robert F. Kennedy, Moore was allowed access to the U.S. Army Special Forces. It was General William P. Yarborough who insisted that Moore go through special forces training in order to better understand "what makes Special Forces soldiers 'special'." He trained for nearly a year, first at "jump school" before completing the [[Special Forces Qualification Course]] or "Q Course", becoming the first civilian to participate in such an intensive program. Afterward, Moore was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group on deployment to South Vietnam. His experiences in South East Asia formed the basis for ''The Green Berets.
Biography Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Moore
Moore also co-wrote the lyrics with Barry Sadler for the Ballad of the Green Berets, which was one of the major hit songs of 1966.
At the time of his death, Moore was residing in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (home to Fort Campbell and the 5th Special Forces Group) where he was working on his memoirs as well as three other books.
During World War II he served as a nose gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions in the European Theater of Operations. Moore graduated from Harvard College in 1949.
Thanks to connections with fellow Harvard graduate, Robert F. Kennedy, Moore was allowed access to the U.S. Army Special Forces. It was General William P. Yarborough who insisted that Moore go through special forces training in order to better understand "what makes Special Forces soldiers 'special'." He trained for nearly a year, first at "jump school" before completing the [[Special Forces Qualification Course]] or "Q Course", becoming the first civilian to participate in such an intensive program. Afterward, Moore was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group on deployment to South Vietnam. His experiences in South East Asia formed the basis for ''The Green Berets.
Biography Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Moore
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 31, 2014
This book is supposedly banned in Dubai but it's relatively easy to find a second-hand (or third/fourth/fifth hand) copy there, pretty much every long-term expat has read it. "Fitz Lodd" usually raises a chuckle, and there are many who claim to know who he was based on as well as other characters in the book. The "Ten Tola Bar" was also based on a real life nightspot.
It's a fascinating read, particularly the parts about the Emirates, smuggling, oil and gold. The book is set in the 1960s, some years before the various emirates became the United Arab Emirates.
The amorous sections are rather dated and of limited appeal, as is much of Fitz Lodd's relationship with Laylah. I wrote this article some years ago on a now defunct site, which I will reshare here:
Why Fitz Lodd is a Ten Tola Twit
Dubai by Robin Moore (1976): A rollicking good read, and still extremely relevant thirty years since its publication, if one can stomach the cretinous American "hero".
Tola 1: Despite being a senior army officer with a couple of decades of service, with ample experience of the Middle East, Fitz Lodd manages to lose his cool in about thirty seconds when being needled by a partisan Jewish journalist known for "twisting words around".
Tola 2: When falsely branded anti-semitic, Fitz Lodd accepts all pressure to take early retirment and save the US army embarrassment, going quietly without any fight or any proper compensation.
Tola 3: Although he is popular with the Arabs solely because they believe the anti-semitic accusations against him, Fitz Lodd tries endlessly to publically refute the allegations, despite repeated cautions from other, wise expat businessmen.
Tola 4: Despite being given specific intelligence that Britain is going to redraw maritime boundaries and screw up "Kajmira's" oil rights, Fitz pushes on with his attempts to get a concession there.
Tola 5: Although he could make millions more dollars in business, Fitz Lodd decides to try for an ambassadorship, for the pathetically lame reason that he wants to impress his girlfriend.
Tola 6: When his girlfriend dumps him, Fitz Lodd loses all ambition, because none of his plans and "thirst for power" means anything "without Laylah".
Tola 7: The split second his ex-girlfriend get dumped by the man she dumped Fitz for, and sends Fitz a whingey little note, Fitz is back on a plane and into her arms.
Tola 8: Despite having nothing but vague hints that he may get an ambassadorship, Fitz makes a massive financial donation to the Republican party.
Tola 9: Despite still having nothing but vague information on the likelihood of an ambassadorship, Fitz sells his "treasured" Ten Tola Bar (his sole livelihood) to clean up his prospects. Readers will be unsurprised and quite delighted when of course he is doublecrossed by the US government (again) and passed over for it.
Tola 10: It takes Fitz until page 501 to actually wake up and smell the qahwah:
"Christ," Fitz muttered, "if that's what we've got in the Middle East Department, the Arabs were one hundred percent better off with the British power structure."
It's a fascinating read, particularly the parts about the Emirates, smuggling, oil and gold. The book is set in the 1960s, some years before the various emirates became the United Arab Emirates.
The amorous sections are rather dated and of limited appeal, as is much of Fitz Lodd's relationship with Laylah. I wrote this article some years ago on a now defunct site, which I will reshare here:
Why Fitz Lodd is a Ten Tola Twit
Dubai by Robin Moore (1976): A rollicking good read, and still extremely relevant thirty years since its publication, if one can stomach the cretinous American "hero".
Tola 1: Despite being a senior army officer with a couple of decades of service, with ample experience of the Middle East, Fitz Lodd manages to lose his cool in about thirty seconds when being needled by a partisan Jewish journalist known for "twisting words around".
Tola 2: When falsely branded anti-semitic, Fitz Lodd accepts all pressure to take early retirment and save the US army embarrassment, going quietly without any fight or any proper compensation.
Tola 3: Although he is popular with the Arabs solely because they believe the anti-semitic accusations against him, Fitz Lodd tries endlessly to publically refute the allegations, despite repeated cautions from other, wise expat businessmen.
Tola 4: Despite being given specific intelligence that Britain is going to redraw maritime boundaries and screw up "Kajmira's" oil rights, Fitz pushes on with his attempts to get a concession there.
Tola 5: Although he could make millions more dollars in business, Fitz Lodd decides to try for an ambassadorship, for the pathetically lame reason that he wants to impress his girlfriend.
Tola 6: When his girlfriend dumps him, Fitz Lodd loses all ambition, because none of his plans and "thirst for power" means anything "without Laylah".
Tola 7: The split second his ex-girlfriend get dumped by the man she dumped Fitz for, and sends Fitz a whingey little note, Fitz is back on a plane and into her arms.
Tola 8: Despite having nothing but vague hints that he may get an ambassadorship, Fitz makes a massive financial donation to the Republican party.
Tola 9: Despite still having nothing but vague information on the likelihood of an ambassadorship, Fitz sells his "treasured" Ten Tola Bar (his sole livelihood) to clean up his prospects. Readers will be unsurprised and quite delighted when of course he is doublecrossed by the US government (again) and passed over for it.
Tola 10: It takes Fitz until page 501 to actually wake up and smell the qahwah:
"Christ," Fitz muttered, "if that's what we've got in the Middle East Department, the Arabs were one hundred percent better off with the British power structure."
October 23, 2011
Having lived in the United Arab Emirates for the major part of my life and being subjected to the propaganda highlighting the benevolence of the rulers, Robin Moore's Dubai was a gripping page turner. Set in the late 1960s, Moore describes the rise of Dubai under the far sighted rule of Sheikh Rashid, how it made its money through Gold smuggling to Bombay, the backroom manoeuvrings for the Oil exploration licences and the wheeler-dealers who profited through all this. No wonder that the book is banned in the Gulf. Had to get my copy through biblio.
November 5, 2017
Excellent primer for anybody seriously interested in finding all there is to know about Dubai
September 23, 2024
If you spent any time in Dubai in the 70s or 80s, you'll likely have heard about this book and how it was "banned" - probably just "not sold at bookstores," I'm sure there was never a concerted effort to confiscate any copies of it. Not having read it until now, it had always retained a kind of mythic status as somehow revealing deep dark secrets of the ruling Maktoums and Sheikh Rashid's (and thus Dubai's), ascendancy to commercial superpowerdom.
But it's not really about that. Being a novel, written by a ridiculously prolific American author (Moore released another 8 books in 1976 when this came out, albeit mostly co-authored works), it's mostly about one American, the protagonist Fitz Lodd, and his questionable involvements with (1 - "Gold") the much rumored (probably not fictitious) gold smuggling operation that occured between Dubai and Indian buyers, (2 - "Oil") the procuring of a drilling contract off the coast of the Iran-Sharjah disputed island of Abu Masa (an agreement Fitz brokers between established [but fictitious?] Hemisphere Petroleum and the [totally fictitious] emirate of Kajmira), and (3 - "Insurgency") his stymying of a sale of ammunition that would have armed the Dhofar rebels (a real communist-backed rebellion I was surprised to learn about, but Fitz's involvement? Probably highly fictitious - and quite unrealistic).
Though the events are interesting in and of themselves, and mark the only three (more like two-and-a-half) bits of action in this book, they're too few and far between. It's almost 200 pages out of 500 until episode 1, and the last two "episodes" come towards the very end. The rest of the book is a lot of talk talk talk, not particularly in-depth plotting or scheming, and ... the love interest. Oh boy. I guess these airport novels in the 70s had to have sex scenes? But it's all so awkwardly delivered, and male-centered, and just, well, pathetic. Laylah, the American-Iranian employee of the American Embassy in Tehran, where she and our "hero" first met, is just this blank canvas of male desire whose only function is to boob boobily, basically. Well, she does offer one important bit of information that drives the whole Oil part of the book.
So, it's not so balanced in terms of action and a driving plot. Conflict only occurs halfway through the book, and then a handful of times after. And the action on the high seas during the gold smuggling is pretty good, to be honest. Everything after is a boring let down, though. There's an entourage of characters that have zero depth, but they are all involved in shaping the Trucial States (what will become the U.A.E.) to fit their money-making interests. Sheikh Rashid and Sheikh Zayed make their own appearances in conversations with Fitz, and they seem like stand-up dudes. But the veiled racism throughout the book, despite Fitz's/the author's occasional mention of some of the Arab leaders being honorable men of integrity, gets tiresome.
If you want to read this to reminisce about time spent in Dubai, in the 80s like myself, it's about 20% worth it for some of the place name name-drops and its semi-historical vibe. If you want to read it as a kind of crime novel that has, I assume, Moore's The French Connection vibes, I doubt it's the same or lives up to that (haven't read it, but given it was adapted to be a successful movie, it must be better than this).
But it's not really about that. Being a novel, written by a ridiculously prolific American author (Moore released another 8 books in 1976 when this came out, albeit mostly co-authored works), it's mostly about one American, the protagonist Fitz Lodd, and his questionable involvements with (1 - "Gold") the much rumored (probably not fictitious) gold smuggling operation that occured between Dubai and Indian buyers, (2 - "Oil") the procuring of a drilling contract off the coast of the Iran-Sharjah disputed island of Abu Masa (an agreement Fitz brokers between established [but fictitious?] Hemisphere Petroleum and the [totally fictitious] emirate of Kajmira), and (3 - "Insurgency") his stymying of a sale of ammunition that would have armed the Dhofar rebels (a real communist-backed rebellion I was surprised to learn about, but Fitz's involvement? Probably highly fictitious - and quite unrealistic).
Though the events are interesting in and of themselves, and mark the only three (more like two-and-a-half) bits of action in this book, they're too few and far between. It's almost 200 pages out of 500 until episode 1, and the last two "episodes" come towards the very end. The rest of the book is a lot of talk talk talk, not particularly in-depth plotting or scheming, and ... the love interest. Oh boy. I guess these airport novels in the 70s had to have sex scenes? But it's all so awkwardly delivered, and male-centered, and just, well, pathetic. Laylah, the American-Iranian employee of the American Embassy in Tehran, where she and our "hero" first met, is just this blank canvas of male desire whose only function is to boob boobily, basically. Well, she does offer one important bit of information that drives the whole Oil part of the book.
So, it's not so balanced in terms of action and a driving plot. Conflict only occurs halfway through the book, and then a handful of times after. And the action on the high seas during the gold smuggling is pretty good, to be honest. Everything after is a boring let down, though. There's an entourage of characters that have zero depth, but they are all involved in shaping the Trucial States (what will become the U.A.E.) to fit their money-making interests. Sheikh Rashid and Sheikh Zayed make their own appearances in conversations with Fitz, and they seem like stand-up dudes. But the veiled racism throughout the book, despite Fitz's/the author's occasional mention of some of the Arab leaders being honorable men of integrity, gets tiresome.
If you want to read this to reminisce about time spent in Dubai, in the 80s like myself, it's about 20% worth it for some of the place name name-drops and its semi-historical vibe. If you want to read it as a kind of crime novel that has, I assume, Moore's The French Connection vibes, I doubt it's the same or lives up to that (haven't read it, but given it was adapted to be a successful movie, it must be better than this).
November 12, 2020
An intriguing story set in Dubai PRIOR to its present rise as a global destination.
December 1, 2020
This was one of the most fun, fast read, summer novels i ever got to read ! I enjoyed it so much, i gave it to a co-worker friend who was getting sent to the Middle East, with the USAF, in 2003.
August 1, 2025
What an epic book. Loved it.
This needs to be made into a movie immediately.
I can see it now...
Chris Hemsworth cast as Fitz
Nazanin Boniadi as Layla
Move over 007...
This needs to be made into a movie immediately.
I can see it now...
Chris Hemsworth cast as Fitz
Nazanin Boniadi as Layla
Move over 007...
May 7, 2017
Received the book from my uncle on a visit to abu dhabi and being a guy who hops onto anything fiction, i lapped it up. Partially too because of the curiosity on UAE. Especially Dubai which today counts as the most famous city in middle east, inspite of the least oil revenue dependant. The book, through the adventures of Col. Fitz Lodd takes us through gold, oil and insurgency, the transition from trucial states to Emirates. It's a good read with fitz the insecure army man. Informative n factful, having visited the region i can say so. What was lacking was the punch in the end.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews