Fireprint

by Geoffrey Jenkins, Chris Foss (Illustrator)

Hallam Cane, a British engineer, arrives at desolate Cape Agulhas-the southernmost tip of Africa-to join a geological research team in their search for undersea energy. All is not as it appears at first sight. Why has the project been beset by so many unexplained accidents?

Why has the Russian diving team trying to salvage the wreck of a ship sunk in 1904?

Why is an American scientist prepared to pay well over the odds for a stretch of barren land?

In an atmosphere of fear and suspicion Hallam and his girlfriend, Maris, struggle against great odds before they reach the answers.

An unusual and imaginative thriller by the author of "A Ravel of Waters."

"Geoffrey Jenkins can write with rare compelling fervour."
Times Literary Supplement

Genres: Thriller, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not the best read. I found the language used very strange for some reason. Quite an intriguing story but ultimately not very satisfying.

[Malcolm]

This is a rasther late example of Geoffrey Jenkins work but also reflects the South Africa of the last years of apartheid, when it was important to the white minority government to have the country seen as an essential link in the Western alliance against communism and Russian imperialist ambitions. Accordingly we see a Briitish mining engineer and the regulation attractive young woman stumbling on a secret South African and American defence installation in the Cape Province and working with the American commander to save the free world from the machinations of the ruthless and deceitful Russian spies who have been trying to penetrate this secret. The plot creaks in a few places but keeps up a steady tension up to the climax.
The major weakness is in Jenkins' narrative technique where he feels the need to give large pieces of the plot and the ficticious geo-political situation to the reader in a direct authorial comment. At points the novel also becomes polemical with the words describing the Russian spies worthy of the Tass news agency in their flagrant lack of objectivity.
Jenkins earlier novels are much better.