PHIL FITZPATRICK
Solid Oil by Russell Hunter, Cambridge Books, Cambridge Maryland, 2014, 290pp, ISBN: 978-1-61386-238-4, Paperback US$18 from Amazon Books
I seem to have read quite a few books over the past year that are set in Papua New Guinea and which could be called ‘thrillers’.
My definition of a ‘thriller’ is where a writer sets up a situation that requires a resolution to avert some sort of dire consequence. Central to this are heroes and villains and a suspenseful narrative that carries the reader along at a fairly fast pace.
Of those I’ve read so far none are particularly unique to Papua New Guinea and could be set almost anywhere in the third world. At best Papua New Guinea simply provides a particular type of exotic setting.
Thrillers of this type seem to always feature either mining or logging and a corrupt government, none of which are unique to Papua New Guinea.
Russell Hunter’s Solid Oil follows this seemingly tried and tested formula. In this case there are both logging and minerals, the latter being for lithium, an essential ingredient powering our obsession with technological gadgetry.
He also presents the reader with a veritable catch-all of stock characters, some of them plausible and others much less so. You name them and this book has got them; from spooks and spies, through fabulously wealthy crooks, corrupt politicians, prime ministers and presidents, smart and deadly indigenes and a standard laconic Aussie.
Sprinkled throughout are the mandatory technicalities of things like guns and the name-dropping of expensive commodities and booze.
Most of the places where the action is set are not real but I get the impression that the primary setting is somewhere in the vicinity of the Star Mountains.
Surprisingly, it all strings together quite well; at least until towards the end. There we have a village chief wearing a penis gourd who can fly helicopters and a hotel receptionist who becomes a prime minister.
The other disappointing thing is the pointless lack of a satisfactory outcome for the hero and heroine and a suitable comeuppance for the chief villain. The latter omission no doubt leaves the way open for a sequel.
Russell Hunter is a journalist who spent a great deal of time enmeshed in Pacific politics. He’s now living in northern Australia with his Papua New Guinean partner and their two daughters.
It is a quick read that has at least one of everything and a compelling narrative – perhaps the best of the bunch so far.
The singular thing that stayed in my mind is where the lady US president, anxious to secure the lithium deposit for her country before the Chinese lay their hands on it, condones the arbitrary removal of what is seen as an irrelevant Papua New Guinean government and its replacement with a compliant one. This is engineered in a matter of days.
Makes you think that does.