A novel by Charles Benoit
Benoit's smashingly good, action-packed first novel lead Douglas Pearce, a young brewery working from Pottstown, Pa, on a quest for information about his long-dead uncle that takes him from Toronto to Casablanca, Cairo, Bahrain and Singapore, before returning him to Toronto. He gets on the trail of a huge stolen gem, and along the way finds rascals, thugs, thieves and vamps along with archelology scholars, ex-museum directors and encyclopedia publishers who appear to be his guides. With much wit and invention, Benoit convincingly portrays the Middle East. A hilarious account of chaos in the Cairo airport reads like an updated scene from Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad. Benoit adroitly contracts the modern features of North Africa and Asia with the remnants of their ancient pasts. Two murderous chases through urban and rural Egypt build to a resolution that remains well concealed until the final pages. Benoit is a rare discovery, and one hopes that he plans to produce more adventure-oriented mysteries with the same skill and energy that propel this excellent debut.
Editorial Reviews
Young Doug Pearce, just fired from his steady job in a brewery, has never strayed far from home. But he's always been fascinated by stories of his dead Uncle Russ, the family black sheep. So when an old friend of his uncle invites him up to Toronto, he accepts. On arrival, he learns that the friend, wealthy and glamorous Edna, has an agenda: she has assembled enough clues to solve the murder of Russell Pearce and to recover a legendary red diamond he was thought to be smuggling.
Doug, nervous but game, jets off to Morocco to play detective. But by the end of his first day in Casablanca, he knows he's made a mistake. From Morocco to Egypt to Singapore, Doug stumbles on. And whether he's escaping across Cairo rooftops, ducking bullets in a high-speed desert chase, or killing time in a crowded Egyptian jail cell, Doug is sure of just one thing: he has no clue about what he's doing.
Narrator: Patrick Lawlor
Audio format: mp3 117 MB
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
Source: Audible aa conversion
Bit Rate: 32 kbps
Length: 8 hours and 41 minutes
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Version: unabridged
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