THE TANGENT OBJECTIVE

Asante is only one of the 61 new emergent nations in Africa where, when you get right down to it, might is still white. On the surface only a Hilton has risen in its one city but there's lots of oil all around which is the objective of Peter Tangent of Starrett Oil. The offer Tangent makes to King Prempeh (pre-empted he will be) is not very gratifying to Tangent so he operates behind the scenes with an American mercenary and an ambitious Captain Anokye toward that slam-barn-boom coup d'etat. This is not usually Sanders line of country but he does well with what is essentially a calculating adventure story. It's the game with the same name, finders keepers colonialism, assisted by naive politics and non-existent morals. Nothing big this time but alert—some marbles, more bullets.