Our Man in Mongoa

By Alex Alben

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684188279
• ISBN13: 9780684188270
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Cengage Gale
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Eric Ambler Would Have Enjoyed This Book!

What a wonderful spy spoof this novel is! I am sorry Mr. Alben did not write any more books that I am aware of. It is the story of a small island in the South Pacific, Mongoa, on which a large quantity of strategic material is discovered. The king is an Americanophile, educated in the States, and married there. But there is trouble in Mongoa--Evil Forces are trying to arrange the Demise of the Virtuous-if-Scatterbrained Sovereign, and our Hero must determine for whom all the locals are fronting--the Soviets (the novel is written and set in the '80s), the French, and unbelievably, the South Africans at one point. The island of Mongoa's position vis-a-vis its protectorate, Bongoa, also makes for fun reading.Our Hero is a stereotypical CIA church-and-spy Blackford Oakes parody, except he went to Stanford, not Yale. He believes his superiors completely incompetent, which makes him Everyman--do you know anyone who doesn't? He is completely on his own in Mongoa, and it turns out nothing is as it seems, even amongst the Bad Guys. So what else is new? But Does Our Hero have the Fortitude to bravely Slog through the Mire and Win the Day for Truth, Justice, and the American Way? The story is told with a light touch, and while violence occurs, it is not a fetish.If you've ever enjoyed a spy spoof, any of the novels of Eric Ambler or Kingsley Amis, or any of Richard Hoyt's John Denson The-Soft-Boiled-Detective mysteries, you will more than likely thoroughly enjoy this delightfully good read.

A gem of a humorous novel

I read this book ten years ago, and found it a wonderfully imaginative and humorous book. Sadly, it is out of print now, and I left my copy on a bedstand in a New Orleans hotel. C'est la vie.Alban's novel deals with a CIA operative sent to the island kingdom of Mongoa in the pacific. The King of Mongoa is a vain young man who attended UCLA and married a cheerleader there. Back home in Mongoa, he is more interested in helping some of the village men train for running track in order to go to the olympics than in tending to affairs of state. And the affairs of state become very intriguing once a large deposit of uranium is discovered on the island - a development that the Soviet Union and French take a keen interest in. Alban's CIA operative is there on the island alone to represent the US's interests in the deposit.The family and court intrigues that surround the king, and the jockying for position among the representatives of the Soviets, French and Americans are told with a sly wit and great pacing. If you ever run across a copy I highly recommend you pick it up.