Windfall [Paperback]

If you like detective fiction, spy fiction, or simply action thrillers, Desmond Bagley is an author you should definitely discover. His plots are as plausible as that in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", but he manages to keep them moving at a much brisker pace, with a great deal more action. His characters are very believable, and although he doesn't go out of his way to write obvious dialect, one can still hear the subtle differences in language between an American, a British man, a white South African, a Sikh, and an educated black Kenyan. A South African himself, Bagley seems very knowledgable of Africa, but he also seems comfortable when his plots take the action to Britain, or even to the United States. He is the author of about a dozen books; all are at least good, and this is one of his better efforts.

Deep in the heart of genre fiction - your classic airport thriller.

Our heroes tend to merge a bit: they've all got military and/or CIA backgrounds and have the same sort of skills and personalities. The opening was almost as good as the finish was bad. The way Bagley started with his loner nearing burnout (but honest and ultimately resourceful) private detective was enjoyable, as was the merging with a wider conspiracy and the central hero. Moreover Africa is a usable exotic location for the increasingly silly adventures. But the book is a gentle and finally a steep slide from readable to tosh. Bagley has painted himself in a half a dozen James Bond characters who in the last couple of chapters inexplicably run into mad panic at meeting a couple of bad guys. The climax couldn't be any more stupid: with the resources of the whole nation at their beck and call, the heroes inexplicably charge alone in the most disorganised of attacks on a compound they could have quietly surrounded with a small army if they had've made a phone call once the game was up. C'mon, my standards aren't too high for this sort of thing, but surely Bagley could go to the trouble of constructing a context where heroics are vaguely necessary. Even more irritating with characters frequently described as hugely intelligent. The climax is lazy - we have it because we must, but the threat is never really even spelt out: what, the South Africans had stored a few weapons underground they might have intended to use in a year or two? It wasn't some sort of doomsday device that had to be disconnected as the clock was ticking down. Why the absurd rush?

So, yeah, after a reasonable start where we were growing to like Ben Hardin for what he said and how he acted, we descended into being told to like and respect Max Stafford and Chip and Curtis and Nair etc. because they're all such sharp and cool operators - without them doing anything much sharp or cool or likable.

Interesting that there's not a whiff of sex in this attempted crowd pleaser - I thought early eighties would have been catering for that, but maybe not. There's barely even flirting, and the early token female that I assumed would be a love interest just fades away - maybe for a later appearance in the series?

'Windfall' begins with the death of a mysterious millionaire, who leaves 40 million pounds to be shared between his living descendents and a small agricultural college in Kenya. One descendent is South African Dirk Hendriks, the new husband of Security Consultant Max Stafford's friend Alix. Another is California beach bum Hank Hendrix, who is tracked down by down-on-his-luck private eye Ben Hardin. But a series of bizzare and violent events (Hank being shot at, Hardin being abruptly fired, and a stranger masquerading as Hank in England....) convince Hardin that something is not right. He eventually seeks out Stafford, who for his own reasons is interested in this mysterious windfall, and together they travel to Kenya to unravel the mystery and settle a few personal scores. Why is there a "fake" Hendrix, how is Hardin's shady boss connected, how does Alix's husband tie in, and why has a local college been left such a windfall of money by a man who has never visited Kenya in his life?

'Windfall' is a sequel of sorts to 'Flyaway', which in my opinion was one of Bagley's best books. Protagonist Max Stafford returns and a couple of minor characters such as Alix and Jack Ellis re-appear, but the book has no direct connection to 'Flyaway' in terms of plot. It does, however, share the same Hammond Innes-like descriptive style, with an unusual African setting and the focus more on the journey than the destination.

The problem is that the destination is not as focussed or interesting as 'Flyaway'. With that book, there was a clear motivation for all the characters (find the aircraft) and everything was geared towards that. In 'Windfall', the plot is not particularly well-defined, and the motivation for the main characters to come to Africa is a bit weak. This means that the protagonists are extremely reactive relative to the plot. The story has to keep coming to them, and there's no real direction in anything they do; they either wander around Kenya without any clear idea of what they're doing, or sit around in hotel bars drinking beer and trying to think of what to do next. We keep thinking that a major revelation will tie all the loose sub-plots together and provide a focus for the characters, but it never really does.

This is re-inforced by the fact that the political conspiracy at the heart of the story doesn't really have anything to do with Stafford or Hardin at all. Their concerns regarding Hank Hendrix are resolved before the third act, and there's no real reason for either of them to hang around at the end. As the other reviewer mentioned, this results in a very rushed and silly climax where Stafford and Co go blundering in against the bad guys for no apparent reason other than to give them something to do. After being so passive for the entire story, it feels so forced and out-of-place to see them go suddenly charging in with a completely disorganised spur-of-the-moment attack.

The way the South Africans went about everything seems a bit strange too. It was the millions being left to a small agricultural college that first aroused suspicion; if your motive is to establish a hush-hush outpost in a foreign country, why attract worldwide attention by means of an unexplained "windfall" in the first place?

So in summary, 'Windfall' is a book with great potential that it doesn't quite live up to. It shares the same exotic African setting and descriptive style as 'Flyaway', and it is nice to see Stafford, Alix, and so on once again. But the plot and story development leave a lot to be desired, and that last 30 pages or so is a real let-down. If you enjoyed 'Flyaway' this is still an okay read, but it's definitely not Bagley's best work. Start with one of his early classics like 'High Citadel' or 'Landslide'.