JUGGERNAUT

by Desmond Bagley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 1987

An American troubleshooter has plenty to shoot at as he accompanies a gigantic transformer and its moving crew through the middle of a West African civil war in this posthumous adventure from Bagley (The Enemy, 1978; Flyaway, 1979). Neil Mannix, Mr. Fixit for British Electric, an Enormous International Corporation, gets yanked from his vacation in sunny, stable Kenya and ordered to wet and politically rocky Nyala on the other, less pleasant side of the continent. He's to see that British Electric's moving men, a game-but-unproven bunch of low bidders, get their enormous electrical equipment safely from port to its destination in the oil-rich interior. The assignment would be tricky enough just given the route along a superhighway that's being reclaimed by the jungle, but, as Mannix has feared from the beginning, Nyala's political situation is deteriorating a lot faster than the highway, and before the transformer is halfway home, Mannix and his truck drivers are smack in the middle of a military rebellion. The transformer trundles on, trying to stay out of politics, defended by the solemnly loyal Nyalan, Captain Sadiq, and his troops. When they rescue a bombed-out medical team and turn themselves into a mobile surgical unit, the men find that their mysterious burden has become semisacred to the long-suffering natives who attach themselves to the procession. Mannix's skills are severely tested. Virile adventure. Like Nevil Shute but rowdier.

Pub Date: Aug. 18, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION