Desert Burial: A Novel

By Brian Littlefair

Nuclear waste, Africa, and the new world order conjoin in a literary thriller that announces a new talent of startling proportions.Mali, northwest Africa, the near future. The Sahara is ravaged by internecine warfare. Ty Campbell, an American geologist living in Mali, spends his days on the conflict's periphery, dowsing for water and trying to forget his murdered wife. When Lila, an aid worker near emotional collapse, leads a human convoy of African refugees into Mali's badlands, Ty's solitude is shattered, but his conscience is reawakened. In a desperate bid to save the refugees, Ty and Lila are forced into a Faustianpact with Bud van Sickle, the smiling face of Timbuktu Earthwealth, a powerful multinational corporation competing for the lucrative privilege of ridding the planet of its nuclear waste. Van Sickle's solution? Bury it beneath the land Lila's refugees have claimed.Pressed into reluctant service by Timbuktu Earthwealth, Ty is shuttled from commando training centers in Virginia to technocratic councils in Vienna to the jungles of the Congo. As the stakes escalate and Mali's growing civil war threatens to consume Lila and her refugee camp, Ty finds himself at the center of a ruinous conspiracy of global proportions.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080506723X
• ISBN13: 9780805067231
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.1" x 6.1"

Customer Reviews

Powerful story

"The stillness here is so profound..." Brian's opening sentence brings to mind the vast empty spaces still left in some corners of the world -- and one man's attempt to escape the frustrations of human contact. Part industrial thriller, part political treatise, part psychological essay -- he evokes subtle moods and powerful themes. Besides, how many good novels have you read which include a statistical distribution curve as a plot device?

A Shocker

Brian Littlefair manages to write a literary thriller because of his superb imagination, his powerful story-telling instinct, and his mind for metaphor. "Desert Burial" is primarily set in Mali which the author notes is now "one of Africa's more vigorous democracies;" that adds a note of irony to this futuristic horror story. That Littlefair's predictions for that country and the world might actually come true makes this story fascinating and devastating. Ty Campbell is a geologist who has finagled his way into being paid by an obscure US government agency to live with the silent rocks and aquifers in the heart of eastern Africa. The opening chapters tell of the isolation, quiet and mineral deposits he loves are exquisite. They are a mind-numbing contrast to the bedlam that is about to engulf the world with tentacles so pervasive they reach out even to Campbell's self-imposed isolation in the desert. There are some restrained romantic interests. He comes to know several women of substance who personify the different ways that people might try to make a positive difference in the world. He comes to know some men who are doing their best to undermine world order. He learns a lot in the process. Littlefair's imaginary (I sometimes wonder if it isn't more clairvoyant than fictional) world is, at times, difficult to follow. The ins and outs and ups and downs of politics, the underworld, and the human traffickers aren't immediately clear. This book is about international intrigue and I'm not sure it wouldn't lose something if the reader stopped to trace every intricacy. Further, I don't feel it is necessary to catch every relationship and motivation to understand and to love a story.. I thought this one was well worth the ride.-------- (Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

The new Le Carre

Why isn't everyone talking about this book? Not only is it one of the best thrillers I've ever read, it's the best book about "the developing world" since the heyday of Graham Greene. And the sentences! This book is champagne for every reader sick to his or her stomach on Grisham and Katzenbach and Ludlum. Read it!