Boomerang is a 1969 "Australian escapade" by prolific writer Andrew Garve (a pseudonym of Paul Winterton), who is also well known under the name Roger Bax for the titles No Tears for Hilda, and Blueprint for Murder, still republished.
An author of about 40 novels, he adapted several for the screen in the 1950's.
He pulled this off in the end, but it took a while to get there.
Peter Talbot is the head of London's Commonwealth Loan Corporation, a wealthy playboy type concerned with an upcoming review - he has come up short after some "creative financing", and seeks a quick remedy before he is caught. Nabbed for speeding and tossed in jail, he befriends Frank Dawes and Desmond Holt. Dawes has intimate knowledge from working Australian mines, and Holt is a wiz at electronics. Released at the same time, Talbot proposes a daring scheme to the men - he will pay all expenses for the men to travel to Australia and rendezvous in the back country. They agree, but we the reader haven't heard the plan... Talbot arrives on a 'business trip' and tours the country in a camper van, Dawes drives a Land Rover through the copper-coloured hills of the mineral country, and Holt hopscotched the tiny settlements of the barren northeast. It takes 150 pages of travelogue for them to reunite, so if you want to hear about a cross country trek across the cracked baked earth and desolate scrub, this is for you. Collecting what they need for the job along the way - a radio and some explosives - they hide in a cave near a small mining town, watching the constant parade of trucks travel the only road. In a few days, seasonal monsoons will hit and the plan will commence. The men have agreed to split the three hundred thousand pounds evenly, but I was still waiting to hear what they were up to, or how this money will appear. As the rains hit, Talbot returns to London leaving Dawes and Holt to fend for themselves. In the last few pages, the clever plan is revealed completely.
For an adventure over 50 years old, this held up and reminded me of the novels of Nevil Shute. Focusing on the men travelling for almost 160 pages, and another 20 for their doomed return to civilization, that left just 10 pages to find out what it was all about. Perhaps this was meant to increase tension, but I felt like I missed something.
I love these old paperback covers, but again: there is no woman character in the story - certainly not amidst an explosion, Talbot is an amateur not a 'mastermind of crime', and it was far short of a million dollar ploy. Furthermore, my blood was not chilled.
My other reviews for Andrew Garve thrillers:
1969 / Paperback / 190 pages
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