Medusa / The Doomed Oasis

MEDUSA

“He had turned his head towards the harbour entrance again and Was standing there, quite still, staring towards the horizon withluß intensity that left me with the odd feeling that he was expecting some visitation from the sea.”

HMS Medusa is an obsolete frigate with an ill-assorted crew and an insecure captain. Why has she been dispatched under secret orders to be a sitting duck in one of the most vital ports of the Mediterranean?

Drawn into a close involvement with Gareth Lloyd Jones, the Medusa’s captain, ex-adventurer Mike Steele begins a dangerous quest for answers. As past and present combine in a series of violent events, Steele finds himself at the centre of an international crisis to which only Lloyd Jones and the Medusa may hold the key.

THE DOOMED OASIS

“A lone figure standing by one of the tents watched us go. It was Colonel Whitaker. He made no move to stop us, nor did he call out. We left the camp in silence and though they knew we were going, no man stirred from the camp fires. It was as though they feared to have any contact with us; it was as though we had already passed beyond the shadows of death.”

This is the story of two men and their fight to save an oasis from the encroaching sands of the Empty Quarter. Colonel Whitaker is a legendary desert figure obsessed by oil. His illegitimate son David is a tough from the Cardiff docks who, wanted by the police, escapes to Arabia to become a geologist. The tragic friction that develops between them is revealed against a haunting background of shifting sands and Bedouin treachery.