FORGOTTEN THRILLERS: THE CHURCHILL DIAMONDS By BOB LANGLEY
Bob Langley’s The Churchill Diamonds, (Sphere, 1986), is the sort of historical adventure novel that you do not see much of these days. Predominantly set in the Sudan in 1898, it is a enjoyable romp that offers plenty of action, and a bit of a twist towards the end.
Langley was a British TV presenter and journalist, who turned to thriller writing in 1977 and wrote some twenty novels between then and the late 1990s. He was an entertaining purveyor of mid-level thrillers that canvassed a range of scenarios and themes, from World War II adventures to terrorist thrillers to revenge novels centred on the Falklands War to the occasional spy novel. The pinnacle of his career was probably the World War II thriller Traverse Of The Gods, which followed in the path of Jack Higgins’ The Eagle Has Landed, and dealt with yet another World War II mission that could have changed the course of the war, and which has been “kept a closely-guarded secret for almost forty years”. South America and mountain climbing are also regular elements of his novels, and the ten or so books of his that I read in the 1980s and 90s kept me well entertained, although I only vaguely remember the details now.
The Churchill Diamonds is a recent acquisition. It is a little different from his other books, and opens with the 1980s theft of 182 pale green diamonds, from the well-guarded vaults of the Coffey Foundation. The gems, known as the “Churchill Diamonds”, are the cornerstone of the Coffey financial empire and were brought out of the Sudan in 1898 by the founder of the business, Lieutenant Stephen Coffey. Perplexed over the bizarre robbery, the diamonds’ famous color makes them impossible to sell, and distressed by rumours that the theft was an inside job, the Foundation’s new CEO visits Lady Catherine, Coffey’s daughter, to learn the truth about the stones.
Lady Catherine’s tale forms the vast bulk of the novel, and details the involvement of her father, then a bored and impoverished officer in Kitchener’s army, in a desperate mission to rescue a British missionary and his beautiful daughter, Victoria, who had been enslaved by the Dervishes 13 years earlier. The small team of rescuers encounter many obstacles along their way to the Dervish stronghold of Kamira, where they learn of the existence of a bag of ‘rough-hewn stones that glitter in the sunlight’.
This a rollicking adventure full of good action set-pieces, near escapes and convincing descriptions of the harsh desert landscape. There are touches of The Man Who Would Be King at times, and the ending is a exciting chase across the desert to the Nile. The British officers and soldiers tend towards caricature, and the depiction of the Dervish warriors is very one-dimensional, but story has a good flow to it and it is very easy to read along.
The inclusion of the 1980s robbery at the front of the book does not really add much, and it is curious as to why Langley included it, although it does allow for a slight, unlikely, twist at the end. The historical plot is actually good enough to stand on its own, and the rest of the book is really a distraction.
I quite enjoyed The Churchill Diamonds and it has inspired me to take another look at the Langley books that I own, and to hunt down some of the ones that I do not have.
A slight word of caution. The Churchill Diamonds is very much of its time, and there is little attempt to round out the Dervishes and see things from their perspective. They are not ungenerously portrayed, but they serve little more purpose than being a source of danger, sort of like Indians in early western movies.
The Churchill Diamonds is probably not that easy to find these days, but certainly worth a look, as are most of Langley’s books. It also features quite a nice 1980s cover.