McCreary, an expert oil-driller convinced of his Irish good luck, with nothing to lose, accepts working for an ambitious and ruthless oil-trader.

Power struggles on a ship, forbidden love, illegal business and friendship in limit situations appear throughout the book that takes place in a remote island of Indonesia, where the law is the struggle for survival and natural catastrophes are a threat.

Morris West creates a main character that is a brave man, eager for adventure, but also for justice, and that will bring out his heroic side, but also the villain inside of him. Interesting focus of a personality and well illustrated descriptions of an exotic island and a native village.

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Mike McCleary is an out of work oilman in Djakarta, about to be forced out because of some trouble he was in. But then a very rich man offers to help him. Mr. Rubensohn has a surveyor’s map showing strong possibility of an oil strike on an island, and he will pay McCleary to bring in an oil well. Rubensohn also has another prize that McCleary wants, the girl named Lisette; a beautiful Eurasian girl Rubensohn had purchased from the Peacock Pavilion in Saigon. She was a prostitute, but McCleary wanted her, even if it meant killing Rubensohn for her.