Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: The Desert Contract

Author: John Lathrop

Narrator: David Drummond

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-22-08

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Suspense

Publisher's Summary:

Investment counselor Steve Kemp, in an attempt to rebuild his finances, restore his integrity, and steer clear of politics, returns to the Arabian Gulf after a decade. He reconnects by chance with his old flame Helen, their love affair reignites, and together they stumble into a shared crisis. Now married to an older man, a diplomat in a punishment posting at the end of his career, Helen is torn between loyalty and desire. Kemp is focused on financing their escape: he needs a major sale. With Helen's husband's unwitting help, the perfect client appears. But time has run out. Jihadists seeping back across the desert shake the country. The regime cracks. And everyone looks to their own escape plans, while Kemp chases his deal as far as he must. A gripping novel of love and loyalties, and the place where personal integrity and politics meet, The Desert Contract is a remarkable debut.

©2008 John Lathrop; (P)2008 Tantor

Members Reviews:

Vivid Saudi setting but characters lack color

This is a first novel so I want to be charitable. It's a thriller set mainly in an imaginery Saudi Arabia which is falling apart where Shi'ites mount an unsuccessful coup, Islamic extremists regularly carry out suicide bombings and members of the Royal family are bailing out.

Steven Kemp, a failed businessman, is hoping to resuurect his career by selling financial services to Saudis trying to get their money out. He meets a former lover, the flame-haired Irish lass Helen, she of the full yet not heavy breasts (cliche alert!!) now married to U.S. diplomat Harry who is many years her senior.

The predicable happens: Steven and Helen have an affair which begins when they are trapped in an apartment block that has been taken over by rebels fighting the government. Steven gets entangled in a money-laundering plot he doesn't understand and the whole thing reaches a made-for-the-movies bang-bang climax somewhere in northern Cyprus.

For me, the best kind of fiction is where the characters leap off the page. Here unfortunately, they mainly lie down on the page. The principals seem tired and jaded and one never really believes in them or cares about them. The most vivid character is actually a place rather than a person -- the author's vision of Saudi Arabia itself -- bleak, scalding hot, scary, narrow-minded, dangerous and unpredictable. It's that setting that makes this book worth the effort. One hopes the author learns from his rookie experience and has another book in him -- this time with more realistic and sympathetic protagonists.

Middle East political thriller is a great read.

I thought The Desert Contract was a great read. I'm not a professional reviewer, just a reader of books. To me, the book was intriguing and spellbinding - I didn't want to put it down.

The story takes place in the Middle East, principally in Saudi Arabia. Because I previously worked in Saudi Arabia, the novel was even more interesting to me, because of my familiarity with locations, companies,lifestyles, cultures and politics.

John Lathrop, the author, worked in Saudi Arabia at various times and at various jobs - teaching, computers etc. - all the while, in his free time, writing this engaging suspense novel. I highly recommend it!