Khaleel Datay's Blog - Posts Tagged "benben"

The Hidden Oasis by Paul Sussman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was my third Paul Sussman novel but the earliest that he'd written. I'm sure many other people do the same when they find a good author, and go back to read all the stuff he's written before. The beginning takes place more than two thousand years BC and was a bit confusing as Sussman lays the groundwork of the legend of the hidden oasis deep in the south of Egypt. In present time we are introduced to ace American mountain climber Freya Hannen who has to rush to Egypt to attend her sister Alex Hannen's funeral. Alex was an adventurer and died from a debilitating disease. Unable to cope with her sister's death in the prime of her life, she doubts the circumstances and does enquiries of her own. When she finds some inconsistencies in the story she becomes convinced there was foul play. She teams up with Egyptologist Flin Brodie who was a very good friend of her sister's. Brodie is a professor at the American University in Cairo whose special interest is the famed Hidden Oasis. Myth and legend has it that the oasis was home to a great round stone with extraordinary powers that would give its owners control over the entire world. The ancient Egyptians feared its power so much that they hid the stone and killed everyone who had any knowledge thereof. For more than two thousand years nobody had managed to find it. Brodie and Freya become embroiled in its search when it becomes known that 50kgs of weapons grade plutonium went down in a plane crash in the vicinity of the oasis. This sets off a race for the location of the oasis and the plutonium by the CIA and a wealthy Egyptian businessman and his pack of thugs. Sussman gives us brilliantly drawn villains, a breathtaking dash across the deserts of Egypt so reminiscent of the Indiana Jones series and twists and turns in the story that keeps you guessing to the end. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves a good adventure story.



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