The Doomed Oasis

A sweeping adventure set in the Arabian Desert, where the shadow of British colonialism threatens to destroy a father and son. Three years ago, nineteen-year-old David Thomas beat his father to death. Actually, David only punched the old man, but it was hard enough to cause him to have a fatal stroke. And the man wasn't really David's father at all: The fight started because David learned that his true father was Col. Charles Stanley Whitaker, a legendary figure who made his fortune in the oil fields of the Arabian Desert. With the help of George Grant, a lawyer he'd just met, David escaped the police and set out to find his real father. But like so many travelers before him, he was swallowed by the desert and never seen again . . . Now, Grant is working for Colonel Whitaker, helping him negotiate the tangled politics of the turbulent Middle East. When he begins asking questions about the circumstances of David's disappearance, he will be forced to confront the nightmare at the heart of the British Empire. A globe-trotting adventure with the sweep of Lawrence of Arabia, The Doomed Oasis is a thrilling political novel, one of the finest ever written by the legendary Hammond Innes.

About the Author :
Hammond Innes (1913-1998) was the British author of over thirty novels, as well as children's and travel books. Born Ralph Hammond Innes in Horsham, Sussex, he was educated at the Cranbrook School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist at the Financial News. The Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. Innes served in the Royal Artillery in World War II, eventually rising to the rank of major. A number of his books were published during the war, including Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1940), and Attack Alarm (1941), which was based on his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain. Following his demobilization in 1946, Innes worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early successes. His novels are notable for their fine attention to accurate detail in descriptions of place, such as Air Bridge (1951), which is set at RAF stations during the Berlin Airlift. Innes's protagonists were often not heroes in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into extreme situations by circumstance. Often, this involved being placed in a hostile environment--for example, the Arctic, the open sea, deserts--or unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. Innes's protagonists are forced to rely on their own wits rather than the weapons and gadgetry commonly used by thriller writers. An experienced yachtsman, his great love and understanding of the sea was reflected in many of his novels. Innes went on to produce books on a regular schedule of six months for travel and research followed by six months of writing. He continued to write until just before his death, his final novel being Delta Connection (1996). At his death, he left the bulk of his estate to the Association of Sea Training Organisations to enable others to experience sailing in the element he loved.

Review :
Praise for Hammond Innes "Authentic and excellent . . . His plot, characters and suspense live up to the setting." --San Francisco Chronicle on Air Bridge "Great Britain's leading adventure novelist." --Financial Times "Mr. Innes is a whale of a writer." --The New York Times "Hammond Innes was exceptional even within an exceptional breed. . . . A romantic adventurer in the style of Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling." --The Guardian "Hammond Innes deals magnificently with disaster." --The Observer "[Innes is] as solid as oak . . . you know him, you read him, you enjoy him." --Kirkus Reviews on Golden Soak