Traitor's Gate

Newton, Charlie

ISBN 10: 1491590130 ISBN 13: 9781491590133

Publisher: Brilliance Audio, 2015

Synopsis

The drums of war beat amid global economic ruin. The skies, not the trenches, will decide the survivors. Rich men marshal their resources as all sides race to acquire 100-octane aviation gasoline, an unproven, unstable witches’ brew that could fuel the fastest attack aircraft. In a brutal maze of corporate treason, personal blackmail, and imperfect heroism, a young, brilliant petroleum engineer battling the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma may hold the key.

Eight years ago in Jerusalem, schoolgirl Saba Hassouneh survived the murder of her family. Sentenced to the barbaric refugee camps, Saba is freed by a legendary Bedouin freedom-fighter. She embraces his life of a bandit/rebel, evolving into a fearsome Arab nationalist femme de guerre hunted by the colonial powers and religious mullahs. Saba has one mission: free her people.

An epic historical thriller from acclaimed author Charlie Newton, Traitor’s Gate races toward the first shot of WWII. As the world’s true rulers vie for dominion, two unlikely lovers collide. Their attraction is immediate, their goals opposite.

About this title

About the Author

Charlie Newton is the author of two previous novels, Start Shooting and Calumet City. His work has been a finalist for the Edgar, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, the Macavity, and the International Thriller Writer’s Thriller Award. Born in Chicago, Charlie has built successful bars/restaurants and resort apartments, raced thoroughbreds that weren’t quite so successful, and brokered television and film in the Middle East. He lives on the road.

From Kirkus Reviews

Ranging from Oklahoma's Dust Bowl to a Mediterranean cauldron of conspiracies, Newton (Start Shooting, 2012, etc.) leaves noir behind to go into grand-scale Michener-mode. Amid the Great Depression, while the family farm blows away in the Dust Bowl, Eddie Owen earns a University of Oklahoma petroleum engineering degree and a reputation as a savant. A former professor calls, one who's built an oil company on Eddie's theory: cracking petroleum to make 110 octane aviation gas. Unrest in Europe means war's looming, so Eddie's dispatched to modify a Bahrain refinery, and that catches the attention of the Nazis and Brits who need fuel for their Messerschmitts and Spitfires. A Giant-size love story awaits. Sabra Hassouneh, a Palestinian professor's daughter, has endured gang-rape and refugee-camp starvation to become Minchar al Gorab, the Raven, a feared guerrilla fighter pursued by Brits and Zionists. Within this "cauldron of hate, mistrust, and murder," Eddie converts refineries in Bahrain, Haifa, and Tenerife. Meanwhile, Sabra fights British marines and Pan-Arab Army of God mullahs before carrying her cause to Tenerife. With Eddie politically naďve and worried mostly about his family's welfare and Sabra driven by the idea of freedom for Palestine, they might not make an obvious couple, but they are striking characters, and their growing love is powerfully sketched. Secondary players, however, are from central casting, like Göring's man Erich Schroeder, a suave sociopath intent on co-opting Eddie and his magic cracking talents. Incorporating sufficient plot threads to weave an Arab kaffiyeh—including an FDR assassination plot—Newton turns Standard Oil, IG Farbing, anti-Semitic Henry Ford, and international bankers into fascist co-conspirators—"The politics of oil and war was a cesspool"—all working to keep Eddie from saving Sabra and then escaping to the U.S. carrying blueprints proving Hitler plans death camps. A Texas-size epic—think Wouk's Winds of War—with an amorphous conclusion perhaps portending a sequel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1491590130
• ISBN 13: 9781491590133
• Binding: Audio CD