Part of Series
An incalculable fortune in conflict minerals lies on the bed of a lost lake. The lake lies in the middle of a jungle hardly changed since the age of the dinosaurs, while the jungle stands on the slope of an active volcano which has destroyed the only civilisation nearby. The volcano serves as a border between two warring central African nations. And an uncontrolled, murderous guerrilla army claims the territory for its own, using a combination of modern terrorist techniques and timeless black magic to keep strangers out. Richard Mariner is leading a team into the heart of it all, seeking the lake and the fortune it contains – his only clues a half-forgotten legend and a huge black pearl that is so much more than it seems . . .
Author
Peter Tonkin's first novel, KILLER, was published in 1978. His work has included the acclaimed "Mariner" series that have been critically compared with the best of Alistair MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes. More recently he has been working on a series of detective thrillers with an Elizabethan background. This series, "The Master of Defense", has been characterised as 'James Bond meets Sherlock Holmes meets William Shakespeare'. Each story is a classic 'whodunit' with all the clues presented to the reader exactly as they are presented to the hero, Tom Musgrave. The Kirkus Review described them as having 'Elizabethan detail, rousing action sequences, sound detection...everything a fan of historical mysteries could hope for."
