HarperNorth first edition - 2022
This is the 25th novel in Scott Mariani's Ben Hope series - started in 2011 with The Alchemist's Secret - and neither the author or Hope show signs of flagging. Mariani is now producing two a year - one in the Spring and one in the Autumn and I am, like a potboiler Pavlov dog, pre-booking each one through Amazon.
This time his hero is off to Australia, to possibly the least known of its states - the Northern Territory. I knew of Darwin and Alice Springs, but little else. I assume, as with many of his other novels, Mariani had been to and researched the area; if it was just desk/internet work, then his writing skills led us very realistically into the outback. Hope finds himself on one of his sister's Steiner Industries Bombardier Global 7500 jets. Accompanying him is his mate from the Le Val training facility; Jeff Decker's step-father has disappeared and his mother is crying out for help. The step-father, Kip Malloy, has just inherited a mammoth acreage of the outback from his eccentric uncle, Mick. It is rumoured that on this land is a huge deposit of silver, which the local Aborigines call the Silver Serpent.
The exact location of the silver deposit has never been found; or, has it? Again, rumour has it that uncle Mick left a map and a nugget of silver, which is then found by Kip. Hot on the latter's trail is the archetype Mariani 'baddie', Wiley Cooper, a ruthless local mine and construction owner, who not only covets the potential wealth but has a personal grudge against Kip. Wiley has an army of vicious hired guns at his disposal (all very Wild West) and he is determined to get his hands on the 'loot'. Hope and Decker's mission is to find Kip.
Romance, not always a given or strong point with Mariani, is in the air from early on. Hope and Decker are met at Darwin International Airport, by Abbie Logan, pilot and owner of a small Beechcraft Baron aircraft. Their lady pilot was a petite blonde of about thirty or thirty-five, dressed in shorts and flip-flops, a red baseball cap and a rumpled old paratrooper jacket a size too large for her...her eyes were the most startling blue, so bright they could have been lit from behind. And like her aircraft, she is a 'goer'. She meets up later, on request from Hope, and proves such a 'chap' that, at the end of the book, it is no surprise when she hops on the return flight to Europe - whether the latest 'flame' is going to last longer than previous ones, we will have to wait until November's promised Graveyard of Empires.
Novelists have to tread very carefully these days, when including 'minorities' in their stories, particularly those who have been treated badly by their conquerors. I feel that Mariani's depiction of the aborigines is sympathetic; there is no sense of condescension in the portrayal of Sammy Mudrooroo and others. Mariani even has the nerve to cast one of them as a ruthless bounty-hunter. The only section which goes beyond likelihood, is the charge of several hundred aborigines on Wiley's thugs; it is a mini version of the Battle of Isandlwana. On the other hand, the author's description of the outback and the close, mystical pull of Nature for the aborigines is superb. On this occasion, I can concur with the 'puff' on the back of the paperback: This savagely beautiful land holds a secret it won't give up easily - and for Ben, discovering the truth will mean not only going up against a small army of hired guns and their twisted paymaster, but also surviving a place where the wilderness is as powerful as the weapons his enemies have trained on him.
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