Jack Higgins’ book East of Desolation is a thriller with a complex plot that will keep you wanting to read more. The book is quite short at only 244 pages with chapters averaging ten to fifteen pages. The story is based on the lives of several confident aviators and miscreants who meet by chance and end up entangled in a murderous plot.
Joe Martin is the main character in East of Desolation. He is a tough, no-nonsense pilot who offers charter flights to people visiting Greenland for business or pleasure. His daily duties include driving people to local fishing spots and shipping supplies to various businesses in his vicinity. One of Joe’s best friends is named Arnie Fassberg, and he and Joe are the only two people on the island to have planes equipped with skis and floats, allowing them to fly passengers to desolate areas of the country.
While out at a bar one night, Joe and Arnie meet a world-renowned movie star named Jack Desforge. Jack is a John Wayne type of man. He is tough, robust, good looking and attracts women wherever he goes. The three men also meet a group of men and a widow named Sarah Kelso who are in town on business. The leader of the group is a man named Vogel who claims to work in the insurance industry. He approaches Joe one night, asking him to take the group to a local plane wreckage only accessible by air.
From the start, Joe can feel something very strange about Vogel and his associates. Vogel tells Joe that the wreckage is very important to his business because he has to pay insurance claims to the widows of the men who died in the wreckage. However, Vogel’s story is not consistent, and one of the deceased men’s widows, Sarah Kelso, does not show any sort of sadness. Joe agrees to fly the mission independently because of the large sum of money Vogel will pay and to do the supposedly grieving widow a favor.
Joe soon flies over the wreckage and realizes that it will be extremely difficult to land on the icy surface surrounding the plane. Even if a landing were to occur, it would take him approximately three hours to ski to the wreckage. Martin still flies with the group and skis with them to the rubble only to find the story growing more and more suspicious. Sarah Kelso’s widow is buried in a shallow ice grave with her wedding ring but under a false identity. Also, there are a couple of fresh snow tracks around with oil stains in the snow. Obviously someone had been at the wreckage the day before and Joe Martin was missing something important.
Vogel, Martin and company return to Martin’s hometown and they all meet at a local establishment for a drink. Some drunken sailors enter the bar led by a man named DaGama, a dirty man with the strength of a giant. They quickly start a fight with Desforge and Arnie, only to be broken up by the local police just before someone is killed. Everyone involved is left bruised and bloody, but DaGama leaves extremely angry after the meat on his head is smashed.
Soon the true motivation of Vogel’s trip to Greenland becomes clear; there is a great fortune of emeralds located in the wreckage of the plane. Not only is there a vast fortune, but Vogel, DaGama, and other laborers work together to obtain the jewels and destroy anyone who stands in their way. The jewels fall into the wrong hands, ending up in the hands of Desforge, Arnie, and a woman named Gudrid who is trying to land a part in one of Jack Desforge’s upcoming movies. Vogel doesn’t like having his emeralds with a stranger, so he has DaGama and his drunken sailor friends follow Joe, Jack and Gurdrid and punish them in any way possible.
Several times in the story, Joe and his friends find themselves on the wrong side of violence and greed. For example, Joe is walking near the pier one night and is hit in the back of the head by a lone assailant. He wakes up several hours later in the storage compartment of a rotting and smelly fishing boat. Joe soon realizes that he is on DaGama’s ship and faces certain death. However, he scrambles overboard and swims to shore in the icy Greenland water. However, Joe isn’t the only person hurt and tortured in the book. Arnie is also shot dead one night and everyone hopes that DaGama has struck again. Later in the book, we find out that it was actually Jack Desforge who killed Arnie with his own weapon. Jack was not getting any movie roles and decided that the easiest way to make money and continue his easy lifestyle was to steal the jewels himself. However, Arnie resisted and Jack killed him with a shotgun fired at point blank range.
Joe is unaware at this point that Jack is now a third party fighting for possession of the jewels. The two continue to run from Vogel and his laborers and simply to stay alive. Eventually, Joe arrives at a house where there are guns firing repeatedly to find DaGama holding a young woman named Ilana hostage. Joe is now a hostage as well, as he is unarmed and was shot in the wrist area before entering the house. DaGama demands that Joe come out and tell Jack to stop shooting DeGama and the house or Ilana will die. Joe obeys DaGama’s orders, realizes that he has no other options, and convinces Jack to come forward.
As the men stand out in the open and try to negotiate the best possible scenario where everyone can live, everyone stays out of jail, and Vogel gets to keep his jewelry, Jack comes up with a plan. Since the group’s culprits were Vogel, DaGama, and Jack Desforge, the three of them would split the jewels equally and leave the country together. Desforge and Vogel would split the jewels fifty-fifty while Joe and Ilana can live in peace and out of harm’s way. However, Jack seems to have a strange expression on his face and as they take off in Joe’s plane to leave the country, Ilana and Joe realize what Jack has done.
Jack knew that he would be killed in the near future no matter what he did. Vogel and DeGama would never agree to splitting the fortune and would just put a bullet in Jack to get rid of him. Thus, himself, Vogel, and DeGama were airborne for only a minute before voluntarily crashing the plane into a mountain. This way, all three culprits would be taken care of and Joe and Ilana could truly live without worry. Before leaving, Jack gave Ilana his belt that contained several bags. No one noticed at the time, but this was supposed to be the jewelry bag. He opened the bags to find pebbles; the jewelry was missing. However, Joe returns to a nearby area where he was running from DaGama and Vogel earlier that day to find his stash of jewelry in a small pile. Joe cleverly replaced the emeralds with pebbles earlier in the evening to make sure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Jack Higgins’ book East of Desolation is a thrilling and murderous story with a happy ending. Although Joe Martin is shot in the arm, beaten up, loses his friend to DeGama, and doesn’t have much luck in business, ending up with a fortune of emeralds. The author does not say what happens to Joe and his jewelry, but the reader can assume that Joe and Ilana live happily ever after with their new fortune. Overall this story is captivating and will keep you reading for hours. I rate this book 4 out of 5.