What do you think?
Rate this book
Max Stafford #1
Flyaway
The disappearance of Paul Billson, clerk in an engineering firm, seems a minor matter to security consultant, Max Stafford. But when routine enquires result in Stafford being beaten up, he goes after Billson, who has impulsively taken off for the Sahara, where his air ace father had crashed during the London to Cape Town air race forty years earlier. A recent newspaper smear implied that Billson's father had rigged the crash to profit from an insurance scandal. Now Billson is intent on locating the plane and clearing his father's name- but someone is determined that he should never find it.
251 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
17 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Desmond Bagley
131 books167 followersDesmond Bagley was a British journalist and novelist principally known for a series of best-selling thrillers. Along with fellow British writers such as Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean, Bagley established the basic conventions of the genre: a tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary hero pitted against villains determined to sow destruction and chaos in order to advance their agenda.
Bagley was born at Kendal, Cumbria (then Westmorland), England, the son of John and Hannah Bagley. His family moved to the resort town of Blackpool in the summer of 1935, when Bagley was twelve. Leaving school not long after the relocation, Bagley worked as a printer's assistant and factory worker, and during World War II he worked in the aircraft industry. Bagley suffered from a speech impediment (stuttering) all of his life, which initially exempted him from military conscription.
He left England in 1947 for Africa and worked his way overland, crossing the Sahara Desert and briefly settling in Kampala, Uganda, where he contracted malaria. By 1951, he had settled in South Africa, working in the gold mining industry and asbestos industry in Durban, Natal, before becoming a freelance writer for local newspapers and magazines.
His first published short story appeared in the English magazine Argosy in 1957, and his first novel, The Golden Keel in 1962. In the interval, he was a film critic for Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg from 1958–1962. Also during this period, he met local bookstore owner Joan Margaret Brown and they were married in 1960.
The success of The Golden Keel led Bagley to turn full time to novel writing by the mid-1960s. He published a total of sixteen thrillers, all craftsmanlike and nearly all best-sellers. Typical of British thriller writers of the era, he rarely used recurring characters whose adventures unfolded over multiple books. Max Stafford, the security consultant featured in Flyaway and Windfall, is a notable exception. Also typically, his work has received little attention from filmmakers, yielding only a few, unremarkable adaptations. Exceptions were The Freedom Trap (1971), released in 1973 as The Mackintosh Man by Warner Brothers, starring Paul Newman and Dominique Sanda; and Running Blind which was adapted for television by the BBC in 1979.
Bagley and his wife left South Africa for Italy in 1960, and then England in 1965. They settled in Totnes, Devon from 1965–1976, then lived in Guernsey in the Channel Islands from 1976-1983.
Bagley also published short stories. When not traveling to research the exotic backgrounds for his novels, Bagley spent his time sailing and motor-boating. He loved classical music and films, military history, and played war games.
Desmond Bagley died of complications resulting from a stroke at a hospital in Southampton. He was fifty-nine. His last two novels Night of Error and Juggernaut were published posthumously after completion by his wife. His works have been translated into over 20 languages.
Bagley was born at Kendal, Cumbria (then Westmorland), England, the son of John and Hannah Bagley. His family moved to the resort town of Blackpool in the summer of 1935, when Bagley was twelve. Leaving school not long after the relocation, Bagley worked as a printer's assistant and factory worker, and during World War II he worked in the aircraft industry. Bagley suffered from a speech impediment (stuttering) all of his life, which initially exempted him from military conscription.
He left England in 1947 for Africa and worked his way overland, crossing the Sahara Desert and briefly settling in Kampala, Uganda, where he contracted malaria. By 1951, he had settled in South Africa, working in the gold mining industry and asbestos industry in Durban, Natal, before becoming a freelance writer for local newspapers and magazines.
His first published short story appeared in the English magazine Argosy in 1957, and his first novel, The Golden Keel in 1962. In the interval, he was a film critic for Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg from 1958–1962. Also during this period, he met local bookstore owner Joan Margaret Brown and they were married in 1960.
The success of The Golden Keel led Bagley to turn full time to novel writing by the mid-1960s. He published a total of sixteen thrillers, all craftsmanlike and nearly all best-sellers. Typical of British thriller writers of the era, he rarely used recurring characters whose adventures unfolded over multiple books. Max Stafford, the security consultant featured in Flyaway and Windfall, is a notable exception. Also typically, his work has received little attention from filmmakers, yielding only a few, unremarkable adaptations. Exceptions were The Freedom Trap (1971), released in 1973 as The Mackintosh Man by Warner Brothers, starring Paul Newman and Dominique Sanda; and Running Blind which was adapted for television by the BBC in 1979.
Bagley and his wife left South Africa for Italy in 1960, and then England in 1965. They settled in Totnes, Devon from 1965–1976, then lived in Guernsey in the Channel Islands from 1976-1983.
Bagley also published short stories. When not traveling to research the exotic backgrounds for his novels, Bagley spent his time sailing and motor-boating. He loved classical music and films, military history, and played war games.
Desmond Bagley died of complications resulting from a stroke at a hospital in Southampton. He was fifty-nine. His last two novels Night of Error and Juggernaut were published posthumously after completion by his wife. His works have been translated into over 20 languages.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
April 13, 2018
My first "Bagley" and an enjoyable companion for a Easter break.
From this - one of the author's later books before his early death at 59 - I can see why he enjoyed huge commercial success alongside Hammond Innes, Alastair Maclean, Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the period from the 1960s to 1980s. The story was well-crafted, with characters that are interesting and a plot not far-fetched enough to dissuade me of its believability.
I liked the links to the pioneers of the air in the 1920s and 30s and that Mr Bagley had clearly done much research on the areas the story would cover in Africa. In fact I was most impressed by how the descriptions of the landscape, terrain and climate not only played a central part to the story but just how accurate and precise these were. There were mentions of cave paintings and river beds; sand dunes shifting but indicating direction of travel from wind, and interspersed with the story are snippets on how desert tribes lived, ate, traded, travelled and descended from each other or from further afield. So for those who think the VW Touareg is a made up name by the folk in marketing, read this book for some brief but interesting insights into the Tuareg tribe, their dress and where they live that led VW to name it's SUV after these people.
In an age before GPS and satellite imaging, mobile/satellite phones, the internet and email, the story stands up well both in plot and the activities undertaken; the preparation (or lack of) for journeys and how the desert features (sand dunes, rock, size) and climate (hot and dry in the day and very, very cold at night) played a part in navigation, travel and to the central part of the plot was good.
Overall, a real pleasure for me to read and I'll be reading more of Mr Bagley's stories and perhaps re-visiting some of the Forsyth's and Maclean's I read years ago.
From this - one of the author's later books before his early death at 59 - I can see why he enjoyed huge commercial success alongside Hammond Innes, Alastair Maclean, Frederick Forsyth and Jack Higgins in the period from the 1960s to 1980s. The story was well-crafted, with characters that are interesting and a plot not far-fetched enough to dissuade me of its believability.
I liked the links to the pioneers of the air in the 1920s and 30s and that Mr Bagley had clearly done much research on the areas the story would cover in Africa. In fact I was most impressed by how the descriptions of the landscape, terrain and climate not only played a central part to the story but just how accurate and precise these were. There were mentions of cave paintings and river beds; sand dunes shifting but indicating direction of travel from wind, and interspersed with the story are snippets on how desert tribes lived, ate, traded, travelled and descended from each other or from further afield. So for those who think the VW Touareg is a made up name by the folk in marketing, read this book for some brief but interesting insights into the Tuareg tribe, their dress and where they live that led VW to name it's SUV after these people.
In an age before GPS and satellite imaging, mobile/satellite phones, the internet and email, the story stands up well both in plot and the activities undertaken; the preparation (or lack of) for journeys and how the desert features (sand dunes, rock, size) and climate (hot and dry in the day and very, very cold at night) played a part in navigation, travel and to the central part of the plot was good.
Overall, a real pleasure for me to read and I'll be reading more of Mr Bagley's stories and perhaps re-visiting some of the Forsyth's and Maclean's I read years ago.
February 16, 2024
Shenanigans in the Sahara…
Back in the early days of aviation, flyer Peter Bilson disappeared somewhere in North Africa while competing in a long-distance race. Neither he nor his plane were ever found, and his wife was eventually paid the large sum for which every competitor had been insured. Now, in the 1970s, Peter’s son, Paul Bilson, has also disappeared. Max Stafford, the narrator, owns the firm that provides security services for the company Paul worked for, and finds himself becoming interested in the reasons for Paul’s disappearance. When Paul’s half-sister tells him that Paul had become obsessed with finding his father’s plane, Stafford decides to follow Paul to Algeria. Stafford will soon find himself on a dangerous journey across the Sahara under the guidance of Luke Byrne, an American who has made his life among the Tuareg people. And it will soon become clear that there are men who don’t want Paul to find the wreck of the Flyaway, his father’s plane, and who will stop at nothing to prevent him...
I recently read a posthumous novel of Bagley’s, Domino Island , published just a couple of years ago from a manuscript found among Bagley’s papers and “curated” by Michael Davies, a self-confessed lifelong Bagley fan. Then Davies wrote a follow-up to Domino Island, Outback , using the same characters and sticking to Bagley’s style, but creating an entirely new story. I enjoyed both of these very much and decided it was time I finally read one of Bagley’s original novels. He was hugely popular in his time and still has a strong following among people who enjoy the action thriller genre. So I pulled on my flying helmet, adjusted my goggles and prepared for take-off…
The setting of the novel is its real strength. The desert world that Bagley shows us feels entirely authentic and, while the story stays with the Westerners, we get a real picture of how this region which seems so alien and inhospitable to us is home to many different peoples all with their own individual ways of life. Through Stafford, Bagley gives a vivid picture of the geography of the region and its inhabitants, especially the nomadic Tuareg and their reliance on camels as both a form of transport and a means of trade. Although Stafford is new to the desert, he is, like so many of the heroes of action thrillers, a military veteran and so has good survival skills, knowledge of guns and has kept himself fit. However he is completely reliant on Byrne for all the local knowledge he lacks, and especially for the skills of navigation and survival in this hostile terrain. Byrne is also a good man to have by his side when the baddies show up, since he too is a man of courage and handy with a gun or any other weapon that comes to hand. Byrne also knows about planes, having worked as a mechanic at an earlier point in his life. Again there is a lot of detail about the technical aspects of early flight, and of the challenges that early flyers faced. All this information is interesting and well-presented, but it slows the pace down and sometimes begins to feel rather more like a documentary than an adventure.
The characterisation is a mixed bag. Stafford and Byrne, the two main characters, are well-developed and likeable for the most part. (There’s one ugly scene early on where Stafford hits his wife, which sadly would not have been remarkable at the time – she “deserved” it – but which made it hard for me to go on seeing him as a hero. This is always an issue with action books of this era – the women are treated as secondary at best, and casual low-level violence towards them is not unusual.) The other characters are rather under-developed, to the extent that I kept having to remind myself who was who whenever they were mentioned. The hired baddies are straight out of central casting. Their motivation is that they are bad in exchange for money, and that’s about as deep as the characterisation of them gets. The real baddie who is behind all the mayhem is rather better fleshed out, though only in the latter stages. Female characters are few and far between and play no part in the action, which considering Bagley/Stafford’s attitude towards them is probably a good thing! Interestingly he completely avoids the other common issue in books of that era, racism, showing respect and admiration at all times for the people of the region* and their various cultures.
(*men of the region, that should be – not a single Arab woman gets so much as a passing mention, as far as I recall. It’s as if they don’t exist.)
The plot is intriguing, with the search for the missing plane and its pilot providing a steady, if slow-paced, stream of action, while the underlying question of why the baddies want to stop the plane being found provides both mystery and suspense. Happily the pace picks up towards the end, culminating in the expected thrilling climax and providing a satisfying conclusion to the story. So, despite the slow pace and the woman problem, I enjoyed it overall and will certainly look out for more of his books.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Back in the early days of aviation, flyer Peter Bilson disappeared somewhere in North Africa while competing in a long-distance race. Neither he nor his plane were ever found, and his wife was eventually paid the large sum for which every competitor had been insured. Now, in the 1970s, Peter’s son, Paul Bilson, has also disappeared. Max Stafford, the narrator, owns the firm that provides security services for the company Paul worked for, and finds himself becoming interested in the reasons for Paul’s disappearance. When Paul’s half-sister tells him that Paul had become obsessed with finding his father’s plane, Stafford decides to follow Paul to Algeria. Stafford will soon find himself on a dangerous journey across the Sahara under the guidance of Luke Byrne, an American who has made his life among the Tuareg people. And it will soon become clear that there are men who don’t want Paul to find the wreck of the Flyaway, his father’s plane, and who will stop at nothing to prevent him...
I recently read a posthumous novel of Bagley’s, Domino Island , published just a couple of years ago from a manuscript found among Bagley’s papers and “curated” by Michael Davies, a self-confessed lifelong Bagley fan. Then Davies wrote a follow-up to Domino Island, Outback , using the same characters and sticking to Bagley’s style, but creating an entirely new story. I enjoyed both of these very much and decided it was time I finally read one of Bagley’s original novels. He was hugely popular in his time and still has a strong following among people who enjoy the action thriller genre. So I pulled on my flying helmet, adjusted my goggles and prepared for take-off…
The setting of the novel is its real strength. The desert world that Bagley shows us feels entirely authentic and, while the story stays with the Westerners, we get a real picture of how this region which seems so alien and inhospitable to us is home to many different peoples all with their own individual ways of life. Through Stafford, Bagley gives a vivid picture of the geography of the region and its inhabitants, especially the nomadic Tuareg and their reliance on camels as both a form of transport and a means of trade. Although Stafford is new to the desert, he is, like so many of the heroes of action thrillers, a military veteran and so has good survival skills, knowledge of guns and has kept himself fit. However he is completely reliant on Byrne for all the local knowledge he lacks, and especially for the skills of navigation and survival in this hostile terrain. Byrne is also a good man to have by his side when the baddies show up, since he too is a man of courage and handy with a gun or any other weapon that comes to hand. Byrne also knows about planes, having worked as a mechanic at an earlier point in his life. Again there is a lot of detail about the technical aspects of early flight, and of the challenges that early flyers faced. All this information is interesting and well-presented, but it slows the pace down and sometimes begins to feel rather more like a documentary than an adventure.
The characterisation is a mixed bag. Stafford and Byrne, the two main characters, are well-developed and likeable for the most part. (There’s one ugly scene early on where Stafford hits his wife, which sadly would not have been remarkable at the time – she “deserved” it – but which made it hard for me to go on seeing him as a hero. This is always an issue with action books of this era – the women are treated as secondary at best, and casual low-level violence towards them is not unusual.) The other characters are rather under-developed, to the extent that I kept having to remind myself who was who whenever they were mentioned. The hired baddies are straight out of central casting. Their motivation is that they are bad in exchange for money, and that’s about as deep as the characterisation of them gets. The real baddie who is behind all the mayhem is rather better fleshed out, though only in the latter stages. Female characters are few and far between and play no part in the action, which considering Bagley/Stafford’s attitude towards them is probably a good thing! Interestingly he completely avoids the other common issue in books of that era, racism, showing respect and admiration at all times for the people of the region* and their various cultures.
(*men of the region, that should be – not a single Arab woman gets so much as a passing mention, as far as I recall. It’s as if they don’t exist.)
The plot is intriguing, with the search for the missing plane and its pilot providing a steady, if slow-paced, stream of action, while the underlying question of why the baddies want to stop the plane being found provides both mystery and suspense. Happily the pace picks up towards the end, culminating in the expected thrilling climax and providing a satisfying conclusion to the story. So, despite the slow pace and the woman problem, I enjoyed it overall and will certainly look out for more of his books.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
August 30, 2025
Just a really fun story; very Indiana Jones-meets-Rick-O'Connell* as our heroes trek across the Sahara trying to solve a 40-year-old mystery while staying one step ahead of a group of mysterious bad guys. No wonder Bagley was long considered the equal of Alistair MacLean, even if his books aren't as well remembered today, (although thankfully, many of them were re-released as audiobooks in 2017 — hence my recent deep dive).
Unlike Adam Hall's "Quiller" stories (another of which I also just finished), in which Hall sends his superspy — sorry; that should be "shadow executive" — to a variety of exotic locales but then never really explores or describes them, Bagley's books are all about the setting. Bagley was famous for his on-location research, and so much as I enjoyed the details of his Iceland-set Running Blind, I was fascinated by the geographic descriptions of his Algeria/Niger setting and Tuareg culture/characters here.
Classic escapist stuff — 5 stars and highly recommended.
* Brendan Fraser's character in "The Mummy." Duh.
Unlike Adam Hall's "Quiller" stories (another of which I also just finished), in which Hall sends his superspy — sorry; that should be "shadow executive" — to a variety of exotic locales but then never really explores or describes them, Bagley's books are all about the setting. Bagley was famous for his on-location research, and so much as I enjoyed the details of his Iceland-set Running Blind, I was fascinated by the geographic descriptions of his Algeria/Niger setting and Tuareg culture/characters here.
Classic escapist stuff — 5 stars and highly recommended.
* Brendan Fraser's character in "The Mummy." Duh.
January 25, 2017
This edition was published in 1979 when I was still in Kindergarten. I borrowed this book from my Father-in-law's shelf during my vacations. It is highly refreshing to read an adventure packed thriller from those times without the gear which is commonly used in today's publications like mobile phones, computers, Internet, GPS and so on. Characters navigating in the middle of Sahara with the help of tyre tracks, camel tracks, stars, sand dunes and old compass - which had to be cleverly used because of lots of iron rich mountains around. It seems so far away from civilisation and yet so real world like.
The story at no point of time seems to be too slow or too fast paced. It is just about right pace and this proves that Desmond Bagley is really a master story-teller.
I enjoyed reading this book.
The story at no point of time seems to be too slow or too fast paced. It is just about right pace and this proves that Desmond Bagley is really a master story-teller.
I enjoyed reading this book.
February 20, 2024
To moja druga przeczytana książka tego autora. Kocham pustynię, więc opisy krajobrazów i zwyczajów sprawiały, że czułem się jakbym tam był. Bardzo ciekawa historia, mój jedyny zarzut tyczy się lekkiego chaosu jaki panuje zdań. Idzie się łatwo pogubić kto jest kim i gdzie bohaterowie się udają i czemu tak. Ale może to być też kwestia tłumaczenia.
June 28, 2025
A fine old school adventure novel from the Alistair Maclean and Hammond Innes days. My dad was a big fan of those writers and Desmond Bagley as well. They all specialized in writing adventure novels that covered vast terrains. Typically, there was a mystery contained within the sprawling adventures and a relatively compact cast of characters. Romance might rear its head, but almost never sex. The good guys were just that and the bad guys were bad. For that matter the bad guys perspective were not given any space on the pages. They were competently written time wasters that the whole family could enjoy (usually) and more than a few were turned into movies. Wilbur Smith gets honorable mention, but he liked to liven up his books with sex, flawed heroes and having the readers (sometimes) go inside the bad guy's head, so he was a bit more complicated.
"Fly Away" was printed in 1979 coming along at the tail end of that era, but it is still very much part of the genre. Narrated in the first person it covers a vast geographical area from London to Central Niger. Literally thousands of miles. There is mystery a search for a long missing airplane (shades of Clive Cussler), daring do, a bit of violence doled out sparingly and enough anthropological detail to flesh out the story with a feeling of "you are here". All in all, a very competently written adventure tale written just before the Internet and handheld computers would change our everyday life. If you are wondering why I mention the Internet read the book, and it will make more sense.
Solid, competently written enjoyable adventure mystery tale. A bit old fashioned for some, but I enjoyed it. However, I'm closing in on sixty and more than a few of my younger co-workers tell me I'm a dinosaur so there you are. Recommended.
"Fly Away" was printed in 1979 coming along at the tail end of that era, but it is still very much part of the genre. Narrated in the first person it covers a vast geographical area from London to Central Niger. Literally thousands of miles. There is mystery a search for a long missing airplane (shades of Clive Cussler), daring do, a bit of violence doled out sparingly and enough anthropological detail to flesh out the story with a feeling of "you are here". All in all, a very competently written adventure tale written just before the Internet and handheld computers would change our everyday life. If you are wondering why I mention the Internet read the book, and it will make more sense.
Solid, competently written enjoyable adventure mystery tale. A bit old fashioned for some, but I enjoyed it. However, I'm closing in on sixty and more than a few of my younger co-workers tell me I'm a dinosaur so there you are. Recommended.
May 20, 2021
Taattua Bagley-laatua, pitää taas kirjoittaa tähän alkuun. Perusbrittiä jännityskirjallisuutta, joka ei liikaa painolastia lukijalleen sälytä. Entinen armeijan upseeri Stafford on perustanut turvallisuusyrityksen, jonka työntekijä katoaa mystisesti. Yhtä mystisesti Staffordia yritetään estää ottamasta selvää työntekijän katoamisesta. Jäljet johtavat Saharan autiomaahan, jonne em. työntekijän isä on kadonnut kilpalentomatkallaan vuonna 1936. Syylliseksi lentäjän ja koneen katoamiseen tarjotaan natseja, mutta vihulaiset ovat kuitenkin kotoisampia. Stafford pärjää autiomaassa erinomaisesti, koska hänellä on apunaan hiekkameret tunteva entinen amerikkalainen Byrne. Vastoinkäymisiä on tiellä lähes jatkuvasti, mutta Byrnen avulla niistä selvitään leikiten. Lopussa sankarit ovat jo tukalassa pinteessä, mutta apuun saapuu se vähiten odotettu hahmo, joka nousee sankariksi hänkin.
Kirja on julkaistu vuonna 1978, jolloin alettiin jo lähestyä juppiaikaa ja punk oli jo alkanut jyrätä vanhoja peribrittiläisiä arvoja. Myös sotaveteraanit 2. maailmansodasta ja Koreasta alkoivat olla keski-ikäisiä jääriä. Siksi tämä kirja tuntuu jo hieman vanhanaikaiselta. Silti se on ihan hyvää viihdettä.
Kirja on julkaistu vuonna 1978, jolloin alettiin jo lähestyä juppiaikaa ja punk oli jo alkanut jyrätä vanhoja peribrittiläisiä arvoja. Myös sotaveteraanit 2. maailmansodasta ja Koreasta alkoivat olla keski-ikäisiä jääriä. Siksi tämä kirja tuntuu jo hieman vanhanaikaiselta. Silti se on ihan hyvää viihdettä.
July 17, 2020
After the dark, cynical espionage drama ‘The Enemy’, Bagley reverted to the kind of action adventure yarn that had made his name. With a compelling mystery at its heart, this hugely enjoyable tale builds its biggest set pieces around the search for the wreck of a 1930s aircraft in the inhospitable wastes of the desert. Brimming with fascinating minutiae about the Tuareg tribes and unspooling at a steady but insistent pace, ‘Flyaway’ sees Bagley dealing with the man vs the elements thrilleramics that he excelled at in ‘High Citadel’ - and since ‘High Citadel’ remains my all time favourite Bagley outing, anything that puts me in mind of it is doing something right.
April 3, 2019
A good read, full of suspense and intrigue. Characters are well-developed. As an added bonus, I learned much about the Sahara and the people of the desert. I rated it 4 stars only because of the typos. Almost, as if, the book had been translated into English, but not so. Desmond Bagley was an Englishman who had written numerous best selling suspense novels. So shame on you to the editor for not finding and correcting these errors.
I look forward to reading more of Desmond Bagley's stories.
I look forward to reading more of Desmond Bagley's stories.
January 15, 2021
The Saharan setting compensates for a rushed ending to a pretty involving 1978 story of a plane lost in a 1936 air-race somewhere near the Algerian-Niger border. The hero, Max Stafford, traces the obsessed son of the lost pilot to the desert and, with old desert hand and Niger resident Byrne and his Tuareg contacts, rescues the son and tries to locate the wreck as heavies from London follow them for unknown reasons., The bad guys are a bit too 1970s-style, however it’s all engaging and the desert descriptions are a real bonus. 3.5
January 27, 2023
29 years after his father disappears on an airplane race to Capetown, Peter Bilson disappears from his job and life in London. Our narrator, head of a security firm, finds several mysteries in his life and disappearance and heads to Algeria in search of him. Bailey apparently knows Africa quite well, as he puts really puts you into the place, with memorable characters and locations. Bailey also orchestrates the mystery well, and the ending is very satisfying. Enjoyed sitting on the beach and reading this one.
June 7, 2022
This is a very enjoyable Desmond Bagley romp. It's a bit quirky in places. The hero goes off to save a man no one likes and the baddie isn't punished for their crimes. The issue I have with this book is similar to other Desmond Bagley's later books in that they lack drama. Things don't really get tense until the last third of the book. Compare that to Bagley's RUNNING BLIND where the hero is in constant danger from the outset.
January 9, 2026
An older book (1970’s). Moved a little slow for me, but there were some funny sayings. One part I took offense to is when he hits his wife and “knocked her clean out of bed.” It didn’t fit the character who a) let himself get beat up on the street and b) was putting extra time and concern into finding a lost man.
“Can you get on the blower and straighten him out?”
“Can you get on the blower and straighten him out?”
May 31, 2023
Cartoonish action set in the desert as the main character Max Stafford follows up on some irregularities in his security business. Enjoyable action yarn laden with cliches and 2 dimensional characters.
September 26, 2025
solid thriller, nothing special here, plottwist at the end didnt really make sense like an "oh, right how did i not think of that" moment. but decently written. but immense drop in quality coming from "The Golden Keel", his first book, which was absolutely awesome.
January 20, 2019
Interesting story, a few twists, decided to follow the series
Want to read
February 16, 2020Synopsis: a clerk in an engineering firm has disappeared but security consultant, Max Stafford, thinks it's minor. Then he gets beaten up.
November 1, 2020
Tot 75% beetje saai, wel een goed eind.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2021
Really enjoyed this book. Felt like I was in the desert in Northern Africa. I Will read his over books.
February 19, 2022
A mystery written by an Australian about a Londoner in North Africa. Exciting and keeps you reading.
June 29, 2022
Impressed! Really well told story.
July 15, 2022
Read in Norwegian. 4 minus, a solid thriller.
September 3, 2022
I discovered this book at a used bookstore. It was in a bin marked, "free." It was easily worth the price and was actually quite good.
October 5, 2022
Good story about the desert
Interesting story about how to survive in the desert, with action packed results, Facts on the airplane and compass settings calculated.
Interesting story about how to survive in the desert, with action packed results, Facts on the airplane and compass settings calculated.
November 27, 2022
Very much enjoyed this adventure.
January 2, 2023
A pretty good thriller, though some bits haven't aged very well.
June 9, 2024
Old fashioned adventure/thriller. Still thoroughly enjoyable.
June 30, 2024
Historical as in, it takes place in the time it was written, late 1970es
OK story, good narration.
OK story, good narration.
February 8, 2024
Unexpected binge! The landscapes and the people were described so clearly and brilliantly that you felt part of the story. I ended up learning quite a big about the inhabitants of Algeria and Niger, as well as the environment in that region of North Africa. Storyline was great and had me excited for the reveal at the end (although they could have put some extra detail into the lead up to Max confronting the evil mastermind and then what Billson was up to afterwards). I found myself wanting a bit of an epilogue.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews