The Hidden Oasis

by Paul Sussman

Overview

Freya Hannan arrives in Egypt for the funeral of her elder sister Alex, a desert explorer who has lived in the Middle East for the past fifteen years. Recently diagnosed with a degenerative neurological condition, Alex has taken her own life. Freya is met at Luxor Airport by a colleague of her sister’s, who drives her the 515 kms to Dakhla Oasis where Alex lived. Only one other non-Egyptian is present at the funeral: Professor Flinders ‘Flin’ Brodie, 45 - tall, rugged, handsome - a world authority on pre-dynastic Egypt. The funeral over, Freya spends the next few days sorting through her sister’s possessions and finding out more about her suicide. As she does so, she becomes increasingly uneasy.

When a Bedouin turns up at Alex’s home with the objects they have found in the desert, explaining that she had promised to pay them for news of any unusual remains - especially Soviet remains - discovered out in the western wilderness, Freya realizes that it is not only her sister’s death that raises questions, but her life as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802145079
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	09/14/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.70(d)

Editorial Reviews

The Hidden Oasis is a rip-roaring gem of a read….You are in for a real treat!” –Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templar

“Another winner from Paul Sussman—hands down one of the best writers of international suspense in the business. Told with authority and style, excitement melds with adventure—you can feel the scorching desert heat and the chapping, acrid winds. The Hidden Oasis offers bone chilling thrills, a flair for the macabre, and off-the-charts suspense. Superb.”—Steve Berry, author of The Charlemagne Pursuit

“The Hidden Oasis is that rarest of literary entities: an intelligent, compelling, beautifully written thriller. You will enjoy every page of this breathtaking ride—and the secret at the heart of it will knock the top of your head off.”—William Bernhardt, author of Capitol Offense

“The Hidden Oasis evokes a lost world of primordial myth that men have sought since the very dawn of history—the twist: this time, the seeker is a female mountain climber! Amidst non-stop action—and literal cliffhangers—Paul Sussman again convinces us that there is nothing boring about the lost worlds of archeology.” –Katherine Neville, author of The Fire

From the Publisher

Set largely in Egypt's vast western desert, Sussman's entertaining if formulaic third archeological thriller (after The Last Secret of the Temple) starts out as an Indiana Jonesian quest for a legendary desert paradise known as the Oasis at the End of the World. When Alex Hannen, a former CIA agent living in Egypt, is found dead, an apparent suicide, her estranged sister, Freya, a world-renowned rock climber, travels to Cairo for Alex's funeral. Freya, soon realizing her sister was murdered, vows to bring the killer to justice. After befriending one of Alex's closest friends, enigmatic Egyptologist Flin Brodie, the unlikely duo find themselves on the run from a host of assassins, spies and government agents—and charging headlong into one of the biggest archeological discoveries in centuries. The smart pace and attention to character development compensate for some dubious plot twists toward the end reminiscent of a weird X-Files episode. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

When mountain climber Freya Hannen's Egyptologist sister dies mysteriously, Freya suspects murder. The more she investigates with her sister's friend Flin, also an Egyptologist, the more they realize that the motive for the murder involves Hidden Oasis, a legendary lost desert paradise and an obsession of Flin. Freya's sister had apparently stumbled onto the key. As Freya and Flin search for the truth and the oasis, others will stop at nothing, including extreme brutality and violence, to find the secrets Hidden Oasis holds. VERDICT Sussman (The Last Secret of the Temple) is an archaeologist familiar with Egypt and the Sahara, but what could have been a great adventure novel is written in numbing detail and further diminished by a number of subplots—lost uranium, timely plane crashes, the CIA, and magic meteorites—that detract from the search for the oasis. Overwritten and disappointing. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/09.]—Robert Conroy, Warren, MI

Library Journal

Egyptologists, gangsters and spies race across the desert in search of an ancient oasis and the treasure concealed therein. Professional rock climber Freya and her sister Alex, an explorer working in Egypt, hadn't spoken in a long time, though they were extremely close as children. So when Freya gets a call informing her that Alex has died due to an injection of morphine, allegedly self-administered despite the explorer's lifelong terror of needles, she sets out on an emotionally trying trip to attend the funeral. While Freya is staying at her sister's house, a mysterious Bedouin emerges from the desert with a backpack he asks her to give to Alex, not knowing that she is dead. Soon thereafter, Freya returns to the house to find it being ransacked by vicious thugs; when they discover her lurking outside, a chase ensues. Fearing for her life, Freya flees to Cairo and the protection of Dr. Flin Brodie, an Egyptologist friend of Alex whom she met at the funeral. Flin and Freya almost immediately find themselves pursued by a local crime lord and a shady CIA operative with unknown motives as they rush to find an ancient desert oasis that seems somehow connected with Alex's death. Sussman (The Last Secret of the Temple, 2007, etc.), himself a sometime field archaeologist, gets off to a slow start but eventually settles into a tense groove, occasionally leavened by flashes of classic screwball humor. Although the British author gets some details wrong (Yanks hardly ever say "bloody" or "arse" and always know what a Hardees is), for the most part his American characters feel real. But the narrative too often bogs down in an excess of detail, and in the novel's final quarter twist after unwelcometwist slows the pace to a painful crawl. Above-average middle doesn't quite compensate for a slow start and painfully bloated conclusion.

Kirkus Reviews

Ploddingly paced, frustratingly contrived, and beyond implausible, this Indiana Jones knockoff sets a British Egyptologist and an American rock climber on a path toward an ancient treasure secreted in the legendary hidden oasis of the title. The pair are pursued at every turn by a psychopathic Cairo arms dealer and an American embassy official with an uncertain agenda. The heroine’s American accent gives British reader Gordon Griffin serious trouble. However, he also does his best to keep things moving and is reasonably adept in the roles of the other characters, particularly those of the sinister arms dealer and the taciturn Bedouin who provides aid to our heroes. A.B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

JULY 2010 - AudioFile