"Bahama Crisis"

(Reviewed by Judi Clark MAR 23, 1999)

Bahama Crisis

is told from the point of view of Thomas Mangan, a wealthy Bahamianwho owns a chain of hotels. He has just signed a lucrative deal with a Texas oil baron when suddenly everything falls apart-- his wife and daughter are lost at sea.  He then stumbles onto evidence that they were murdered and the boat was being used to smuggle heroin.  And then his hotels begin to suffer unexplained accidents which drives tourists away. Mangan digs for facts which brings him to the Texas bayous, Houston and a climatic boat chase through the Caribbean waters.

One of the things I found interesting in this novel was learning about the issues concerned when developing on the islands. For a thriller, it has a good amount of intelligence.

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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

• The Golden Keel (1963)
• High Citadel (1965)
• Wyatt's Hurricane (1966)
• Landslide (1967)
• The Vivero Letter (1968)
• The Spoilers (1969)
• Running Blind (1970) 
• The Freedom Trap (1971)
• The Tightrope Men (1973)
• The Snow Tiger (1975)
• The Enemy (1977)
• Flyaway (1978)
• Bahama Crisis  (1980)
• Windfall (1982)
• Night of Error (1983)
• Juggernaut (1984)

Movies from Books:

• The Mackintosh Man (1973) (based on The Freedom Trap)

 

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Book Marks:

• A Desmond Bagley biography
• Herman Charles Bosman and Other Barflies - part 2
• Good Desmond Bagley web site
• Notes on Desmond Bagley and his works
• Review of High Citadel
• Comment on Running Blind
• Review of Bahama Crisis
• Did he write a book called Legacy in 1982?

 

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About the Author:

Desmond Bagley was born in England in 1923. At the age of 14 Bagley left school and began his working life as a printer's devil, and then went to work at a factory making plastic electrical fittings and then he worked in the aircraft industry.  In 1947, Bagley started his long journey to South Africa taking various jobs along the way.  In the 1950s Bagley lived in South Africa where he became a freelance journalist. In 1960, Bagley married Joan Margaret Brown at which time they lived in Italy.  He was forty years old when he published his first novel, which was an immediately success. In 1967 they moved to Guernsey. He died April 12, 1983 in Southhampton.