My newest read, this one taken from my May reading list. Oasis by T.W. Hard. [Dell Fiction, 1985, 315 pages] A tasty adventure story! The pages just flew by! Well-paced, and I love the characters. Many edge of your seat moments, and action scenes, really kept me coming back to the page. Chapters tend to be short and usually end on some sort of cliffhanger, making it gripping and easy to devour.
In search of a guide through the desert, James shows one man the jewel. Fighting breaks out in the bar once the jewel is noticed, everyone after the sapphire. They are rescued from this by one Lisiri, an African who had studied abroad, learning several languages. He is the one who ends up serving as their guide, and he's one of my favorite characters.
The group is joined by Ruth, an anthropologist from a museum in Nairobi who knew Diana and had heard from her earlier that year. They are outfitted as well, by connections of Lasiri's, with several mercenaries with hidden automatic weapons. They travel under the guise of an archaeology team in order to pass Border Patrol. Several Land-Rovers are their method of transportation.
Reaching the oasis of Al-Jabbar, they learn where Diana was known to be. Jon Paul meets a young woman in the markets, her name Faedra. Due to language barrier, they never trade words except for their names. She definitely returns his attraction; she gives him a gazelle carved of ivory, which was her best piece. He gives a house key in return, something she had never seen before.
They come across the village to find it slaughtered. They don't find her body. After some digging through the area, another sapphire is found in the mouth of one of the bodies, which was buried in a grave instead of left to rot.(These jewels are only found by those from the lost city of Bogadez; only those who had been there kept them. When they were buried their jewel was placed in their mouth, and it was a curse for anyone to steal it.) Lisiri suspects Abyssinian raiders from Bogadez, suggesting they follow the course the caravan would have gone, westward across the desert. The Land Rovers are soon abandoned, unable to travel further through the sand. They find themselves on foot, following an ancient trade route, which was used heavily centuries before.
The group, already weary from their travels, are captured by a Tuareg caravan. This is an arab group, led by Rassam, its Sheik. They are taken (not under good conditions) to the lost city of Bogadez, where James, Jon Paul, and Ruth are to be sold into slavery. During Rassam's interrogation of James and Jon Paul, the Sheik's translator Ibrahim had put Jon Paul through a test- letting a scorpion crawl on his arm, and if it stings him it is a sign that he is lying about his purposes there. The scorpion first crawls peacefully but Ibrahim spits on it, and Jon Paul is poisoned.
He is nursed back to health over the next few days, and Faedra is one of his nurses. Rassam had taken her from her caravan to be his servant. She comes alone sometimes, kissing him, cuddling, one time making love to the young man. This could have been because she thought he might be castrated as penalty for lying to the Sheik. When Jon Paul is recovered, he is taken to a tent with another prisoner who is to be punished. Jon Paul befriends him, though as with Faedra, they share little words due to not speaking each others' language. He appears much later in the Novel.
At one point during capture James lashes out at the guards. For this they hang him upside down on a pole and leave him to die. He is soon saved from this brutal death and brought to the secret caves beneath Bogadez. This is an area known to be inhabited by lepers, thus rarely touched. Here James finds Lasiri hiding out, along with a few new characters. Solomon the mute, with his tongue cut out, strong and silent, had rescued James. and Isaiah, (with his cute pet monkey Alabaster) rescues Ruth from her slavery. For a few days they stay there, plotting the rescue of both Jon Paul and Diana. What little weapons and resources they can muster, is readied to rescue Jon Paul from being executed. They are severely short on weapons and ammunition, (Their store of automatic weapons long lost to the raiders) but have no other options but to use what they have.
There is a chaotic struggle throughout the oasis as Jon Paul and Diana are rescued. It's dealt with by jumping around several characters' perspectives. Not what I'd describe as 'epic', like some fantasy saga, but Oasis has a very thrilling and nail biting climax. In the end, Lisiri manages to get the Jacobsons on a few camels and off to Al-Jabbar. But Lisiri, realizing that the caravan pursuing them is going to catch them soon, devises one last plan to save the Jacobsons. He uses sticks to make dummies, places them on his camels as a decoy, fooling the caravan into following him, while the three circle around on foot and make their way to Al-Jabbar. The Sheik's warriors take the bait. Nearing the end of the novel, the Jacobsons are found wandering through the empty desert, trying to find their way after Lisiri's departure.
The final chapter is a fast forward to 15 years after. The Jacobsons had all visited Africa at some point, to study and explore further, unable to forget about their experiences. However, they find Bogadez empty of caravans upon their return, and the remaining cave dwellers wish no help from the outside world.
Oasis really ramps up the more you get into it. Action scenes are well played out and hit hard. Gritty violence at times, (people die from- or in some cases survive- heavy wounds from swords, bullets and leprosy) but still. James, the architect by trade, obsessed with finding his sister, able to joke around in even the darkest situations; Jon Paul, the teenage younger brother, who his father sees as somewhat of a slacker (He disproves this over the course of the novel); Ruth, the learned researcher, sticking out the journey in her middle age and with a bad hip, is just as much out for study as for rescue; Lisiri, one who knows the way of the desert, and knows his cultures and languages. It's a great cast of characters to spend time with. Lastly, and central to the plot, is Diana, the motivated photographer who ironically and tragically ends up blinded by Rassam, as punishment for disobedience. She isn't in very many scenes, it's a mystery what happened to her until well into the novel. But she is a trooper, continually defiant to the Sheik even after being blinded. (After their rescue, she receives top notch surgery in the U.S. and regains most of her eyesight, making a successful career for herself over the following decade.)
This is to-the-point writing, nothing artsy. This is a satisfying adventure novel, not a clunker at all. Somehow it felt much shorter than 300 pages. Very thrilling action moments, great cliffhanger-chapters, great characters.
Till the next one!
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