FFB - Hell's Gate

Friday's Forgotten Book today is Hell's Gate by Michael Parker

Originally published by Robert Hale in 2007, it is now released as a paperback by Acclaimed Books. It deserves a wide readership.

Set in British East Africa in 1898, this is a tremendous adventure story inspired by historical events. Widower Reuben Cole is a farmer in the Rift Valley area and is hunting with his twelve-year-old son David. Neither is aware that they’re being watched by Dutchman Snyder, who is planning something which will yield him power and money.

In the nearby railway camp of Nairobi, the chief administrator to the Railway Company and Major Webb of the British East Africa Rifles are talking politics. Despite the unseasonal rain, the railway construction is progressing, and they hope to link up Mombasa with Uganda, ‘the jewel of Africa’. But there are rumours that a Masai chief has joined forces with the Germans to attack and undermine British interests.

The damnable continual rain was threatening to fill Lake Naivasha to capacity and if that happened, the overflow would course down through the funnel of Hell’s Gate and swamp Reuben’s farmland. He left his son at home and set out to seek out any options for diverting the possible down-rush of water. His farm was attacked by a party of Masai and his son and his friend’s children were taken away, to be sold into slavery. As Reuben sets out on his son’s trail - a journey that might also decide the future of this land - his fate becomes entwined with Reverend Bowers and his daughter Hannah and Major Webb, who is in love with Hannah.

Webb’s contingent of 200 soldiers and fifty volunteers is pitted against the massed warriors of 10,000 Masai led by the evil Snyder. At stake are not only their lives, but the railway and Britain’s presence in East Africa.

There’s plenty of action and believable romance too. Parker effectively conjures up impressive images of the land and the people. While an attempted rape and some fighting scenes are quite graphic, this is still a good old-fashioned and exciting adventure yarn which I’d recommend to both sexes. Hannah’s world is turned upside down when Reuben dramatically enters her life; she finds her feelings torn in two. You care about her fate, and also that of Reuben, his son, her father, the gruff but heroic Sergeant and even love-torn Webb.

 
Get past the politics of the early pages – essential to set the scene - and you won’t want to put the book down.

This was my review of the 2007 hardback. I especially like the new cover.

***

Michael Parker's bio (from Goodreads):
Brought up in London. Attended Sir Walter St. John's Grammar School for boys in Battersea until the family moved to Portsmouth in 1954. Continued education at Southern Grammar. Left school with no qualifications and started work as a Junior deigner at Twilfits (Corset/Brassiere manufacturer). Left after one year and joined the Merhcant Navy as a Steward. Two years later married Pat, my teenage sweetheart and went to work on a building site. Three months later I joined the RAF as an electrician. Left 16 years later on a redundancy package and worked in a food factory for a couple of years. Left and worked in the Middle East for a year. Then back to another food manufacturer (Mars) for 17 years until early retirement in 1996. Moved out to Spain with Pat in 1997. We have four sons and ten grandchildren.

I have written all my adult life with moderate success. My first novel, NORTH SLOPE was published by Macmillan in 1980. My second, SHADOW OF THE WOLF in 1984 by Robert Hale. My third, HELL'S GATE was published in 2007 by Robert Hale followed by THE EAGLE'S COVENANT (2007) and THE DEVIL'S TRINITY in 2008. This was followed by THE THIRD SECRET,in 2009 and then A COVERT WAR in 2010. My latest novel, THE BOY FROM BERLIN was released in December 2011, and has now been picked up by Harlequin who have purchased (leased) the paperback rights for North America and Canada.

I have also teamed up with Acclaimed Books Ltd., and have published NORTH SLOPE in paperback and in Kindle. Also A COVERT war is now available in both formats. Later this year I will publish The Third Secret, but will give it the title: ROSELLI'S GOLD. Please look up these books; you won't be disappointed.

He is currently being treated for Lymphoma and facing this with stoicism, while continuing to write. Our prayers go to you and your wife Pat at this time, Michael.

Torn from the news – ‘human trafficking’

Slavery is still with us, over a hundred years after it was ‘abolished’. Human trafficking is one unpalatable aspect of this international crime. It provides one strand to the convoluted network run by el Jefe in my thriller Blood of the Dragon Trees published by Crooked Cat Publishing.

 The work to fight these gangs is never-ending, as this report from the Costa Blanca News dated 7 August, 2009 testifies.

 

Book excerpt:

Anton Belofsky was a Russian oligarch, who enjoyed life and shared his good fortune with the beautiful people. His lavish lifestyle meant that he always kept an eye out for more ways to make money. This was his eighth visit to Tenerife in a year and each time he’d been paid handsomely for his trouble. After the fourth time, Customs became suspicious and decided he must be a drug smuggler. They gave his luxury cruiser Mara a thorough going-over but found nothing, and in fact spent a great deal of time and money replacing damaged furniture and locks. Some of the male customs officers had been very apologetic, possibly because Anton surrounded himself with up to ten beautiful women. Anton suspected that they lingered over their searches so they could ogle the scantily-clad women longer. No matter, his merchandize was unharmed and vastly profitable.

            This journey was no exception. As the cruiser approached Santa Cruz, he lounged on the plush leather couch on the stern upper deck and spoke with a nasal twang into his handset. ‘Nicolai, I want to examine the merchandize one last time.’

            ‘Very good, sir.’

            Moments later, Sorina climbed up the steps and offered him a smile. Her small round face was angelic, while her diminutive figure was the complete opposite; the voluptuous curves hardly contained in the red bikini suggesting demonic passion. She sent his pulse racing. ‘Very good, my dear.’ She was Romanian and didn’t understand English, Spanish or Russian, but she nodded at his gentle tone. She walked a little unsteadily in her red high heels and sat in an ungainly manner on the couch next to him. ‘You probably require a little more decorum. But you’ll do.’

            Next stepped out Gayla, big boned yet slim, with angular hips and a thick moist mouth. She wore a green swimsuit that tantalized with its many cutaways, revealing pale flesh in unexpected places.

And so the parade went on – Elena, Ludmila, Annika, Dorotea, Sofia, Pia, Tena and Lia. Ten women – from Greece, Italy, Russia, Romania and Sweden – smuggled in on false papers to provide pleasure for men with money.

Ten expensive women.

            Surrounded by his merchandize, Anton chewed his thumbnail and his thin lower lip turned down. Well, nine expensive women, he allowed. He must save one for el Jefe, as usual.

            ‘Sir,’ said Nicolai on the intercom, ‘Customs have radioed – they want to come onboard when we get alongside.’

            Belofsky snickered. ‘I bet they do – just to get an eyeful of our pretty women!’

- Blood of the Dragon Trees, (pp25-26)

 

 

Buy it from Amazon UK here

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UK Kindle here

 

Amazon com Kindle here

 

 

 

 

 

Torn from the news – living in slavery

About 880,000 people in the EU are living in slavery, according to the October figures from the European Parliament’s Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering Committee (CRIM). These include children who are forced to beg, men who are forced to work for pitifully low or no wages, and women who are forced to work as prostitutes.

CRIM has urged the EU member states to eradicate trafficking in human beings. Considering that it’s estimated that organised crime nets around 25billion euros each year, crime lords are not going to give up their hold on their luckless human assets.

The aim to eradicate this modern form of slavery is not going to be easy, since there are thousands of corruption cases registered in the public sector of the EU. There’s no telling what the actual damage this causes, either, but it must be considerable. Forlorn hope, but if organised crime could be radically reduced, imagine how improved living standards would be!)

There are relatively new crimes being organised today, too. A booming trade in human organs and wildlife and the rapid spread of cyber-crime take their toll.

In Europe, there a total of 3,600 international criminal organisations operating across the EU, according to the report. This is one reason why the British SOCA (and parts of the Border Agency, and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, as well) have been replaced by the NCA (National Crime Agency) to tackle the 40,000 individuals in 5,500 criminal gangs in UK; the NCA will have a big presence abroad, too, with 130 officers in excess of forty countries.

CRIM recommends the abolition of European tax havens and increased prison time for thos caught and convicted of money laundering or corruption. To help in the fight against corruption, the committee calls for further legal protection for whistle-blowers within the EU.

Excerpt from Blood of the Dragon Trees

The week was a long ordeal of starvation rations, hard labour and a few minor beatings, but Jalbala stoically accepted his lot. His body ached in every muscle, mainly from work, but he was determined to fit in.

Including him, there were twenty-two in the new group, so Mustapha had been accurate on that point, too. It seemed that the rest of the group hadn’t noticed the switch. They were probably – and understandably – wrapped up in their own fate at the time.

Some days he was put to work in a field, picking melons. The open air was preferable, but the sun quickly sapped his strength and gave him a pounding headache, the first signs of dehydration. In the fields, Jalbala got to know the woman he’d pulled out of the water. Her name was Nadira. She was twenty-four and had left her two young boys with her parents. Her husband had been killed and she wanted to fend for herself. ‘Europe is where I will make money and bring my children up,’ she told Jalbala with conviction.

Other days, he worked under immense sheets of plastic. Within these greenhouses, he found it difficult to breathe in the very humid 140^oF. Light and heat seemed to radiate from every surface. The days melded into an amorphous mass of time within Jalbala’s surreal world, where the sky was white, suspended by arched wooden ribs, just inches above his head.

Toiling in the suffocating greenhouses, Jalbala made friends with one of the men who’d been landed from the ship. Talking made them even more breathless, but Jalbala needed information and Jope was glad to pass the time while doing monotonous work.

Jope spoke French. He was Senegalese, with a wife and a five-year-old daughter. He’d been an electrician, earning £25 a month.

‘Why talk in British pounds?’ Jalbala queried. ‘Your currency is francs, isn’t it?’

Jope shrugged. ‘I don’t know why, but they preferred discredited pounds, rather than our francs or euros.’

He went on. He’d been enticed by a friend who said that in the Canaries he could earn at least £1,000 a month. ‘I decided to improve my family’s lot. I spoke to my wife and we agreed. I took our family savings and went to the coast.’ He eventually caught a ship sailing from Dajla in Mauritania. ‘I want a house and I want to educate my children,’ he told Jalbala. ‘The journey cost £800. I worked for three months to add the wages to our savings.’

Jalbala felt for the man. The money that ruled – and ruined – Jope’s life was peanuts to the majority of people in the UK or the States. Everything was relative, he supposed. Both the States and the UK were still hurting from the credit crunch and massive borrowing. Yet he’d seen in England that large sections of the workforce were still intent on striking for higher wages. What planet were they on?

‘Why do you ask so many questions?’ Jope said.

Really good question, Jalbala thought. ‘I’m a reporter. I want to expose the people who put you through this.’ He only wished that was true; maybe some aspects of it could be.

Somewhere near, guard dogs barked and Jalbala knew that not far from their side strode sadistic men with pickaxe handles and baseball bats. (p84)

 

BLOOD OF THE DRAGON TREES

Amazon.co.uk - http://goo.gl/fsLk3X

Amazon.com - http://goo.gl/wHQpQp

Laura Reid likes her new job on Tenerife, teaching the Spanish twins Maria and Ricardo Chávez. She certainly doesn’t want to get involved with Andrew Kirby and his pal, Jalbala Emcheta, who work for CITES, tracking down illegal traders in endangered species. Yet she’s undeniably drawn to Andrew, which is complicated, as she’s also attracted to Felipe, the brother of her widower host, Don Alonso.

            Felipe’s girlfriend Lola is jealous and Laura is forced to take sides – risking her own life – as she and Andrew uncover the criminal network that not only deals in the products from endangered species, but also thrives on people trafficking. The pair are aided by two Spanish lawmen, Lieutenant Vargas of the Guardia Civil and Ruben Salazar, Inspector Jefe del Grupo de Homicidios de las Canarias.
            Very soon betrayal and mortal danger lurk in the shadows, along with the dark deeds of kidnapping and clandestine scuba diving…

Note. The film The Whistleblower (2010) is a searing indictment of institutionalised corruption that condones people trafficking, with a superb performance from Rachel Weisz. This film is at times brutal, uncomfortable viewing and not for the faint-hearted. It’s based on actual events.