THE BIRDS OF PREY
Published in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States
SUMMARY
The scene is set in France and its colony, Reunion Island. On 9 March 1968 a DC6 aircraft carrying General Ailleret, Chief of the French General Staff, his wife and entourage, crashed on take off from Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. The only survivor was an air hostess. This is historical fact. The crash was variously attributed to an excessive fuel load (for the long leg to Djibouti) or possibly some over-indulgence on the part of some members of the crew who had not expected – and did not wish – to fly that night.
Charles Stone becomes obsessed with the life and death of General Ailleret. He comes to think that something quite different caused the fatal crash. He wants to know the truth. In the game he has embarked on – the exposé he is attempting – against the military/political hierarchy of France, Stone is soon in deep trouble. Indeed he does not understand the game, though he scents and hunts the evil in it.
Reviews by Country
France
Le Nouvel Observateur
“Saul’s novel, captivating thought it is, sends shivers down the spine, makes the heart miss a beat and allows us to glimpse a moral truth – that any mind plunged into a tank infested by dollars will be subjected to the sort of treatment that would make a piranha proud.”
“This crusade without mercy from the boulevards of Paris to the dirt tracks of Normandy cannot be put down until it is finished.”
Le Monde
“An uncontrollable hornet’s nest. A vast and bloody game of GO played out across the world. Saul questions the fate of morality at a time when large corporations can unleash the dogs of ward. His hero…is the victim of a new world where one does not die for an idea, but for a portfolio of shares.”
Le Canard Enchaine (Paris)
“Saul has launched a megaton bomb.”
United Kingdom
The Times
“Perversely poetical….You read on, held.”
Sunday Times
“Different and sinister…”
Financial Times
“Real life has been acting out Baraka’s fictional episodes in an uncanny way.”
“An absorbing book. As the investigation grips the hero, it grips the reader.”
Daily Telegraph
“The book, which was published in France, has already caused a sensation there, where political novels are a recognized form of art.”
British Book News
“A cold exposé of the international traffic in the tools of death and destruction…cleverly constructed and has a quality of driving intensity.”
United States
Publisher’s Weekly (New York)
“Vicious corporate infighting, corruption in Thailand, high- and low-life in Rabat and an amazing trek across the Sahara, the book holds us tight.”
Chicago Tribune
“Saul’s masterly narration rises to the level of art….Fiction that makes paranoia a delight.”
