Kirkus Reviews QR Code
THE WILDCATTER by Desmond Meiring

THE WILDCATTER

By

Pub Date: May 2nd, 1988
Publisher: St. Martin's

A hard-charging English oil executive, spurned by his employer, defects to the Near East and becomes a hard-charging Arabian oil executive. By the author of A Talk With the Angels (1986). Philip Blake has done quite well for a scholarship boy. Cursed with a fine mind, natural drive and ambition, and great athletic ability, he has, by reining in his talents, risen through public school and a minor Oxford college without drawing excessive attention to himself. But now that he's in the oil business, where he can at last run and run hard, he has run smack into the hard wall of Kobus (the Ice Maiden) van Straten, chairman of the board of Eagle International, a man who hates Blake's guts. Even when Blake's negotiating skills and friendships with Arabian royals land an enviable contract with the oil-rich Kingdom of The Sun, it is not enough for van Straten. He continues to make Blake's business and personal life miserable, cuckoldry being the last straw. Swearing revenge, Blake goes to work for the Kingdom of the Sun, where he pulls down an enormous salary, carries on a very satisfying relationship with a gorgeous princess, wields great power, humiliates Eagle International, steeps himself in Arabic culture, and becomes seduced by the cause of the Palestinians. A good story. Wanders into the incredible from time to time, and the attention to wardrobe details and wine labels is excessive, but the action is fast and the scenery attractive.