The exploiters - Samuel Edwards

From Abu Bakr, an oil-rich shaikhdom on the Persian Gulf, rumours of the discovery of a vast new field - perhaps the biggest strike ever! - signal the start of a headlong scramble among the exploiters:

Dugald MacIntosh, once a wildcast oilman and now president of Aapco, an American oil empire running mortally short of crude;

Lyman ('Red') Hamilton, Aapco's man-on-the-spot, whose private life is bedevilled by the caprices of his lovely, impressionable daughter;

Dale Kenyon, a rough, tough oil troubleshooter in need of a break, sent out by Aapco to smooth-talk the newly enthroned Emir

Shaikh Suleiman ben Yosef, an absolute monarch whose twin passions for hawking and for blondes occasionally coincide in a sadistic pastime;

Farima, Ali and their friends - idealistic young Arabs from the town who plot a coup d'etat and the humbling of the mighty Dollar in the common Arab cause against Israel.

And then there is the beautiful, daring and mysterious woman with different names in different countries and authoritative sources of information everywhere.

The territory is the fashionable hotels of London and New York and the backstreets of Paris and Cairo; the palace and desert of Abu Bakr; the bedrooms and harems of the West and Middle East; the executive offices of a giant corporation and the government offices on the Persian Gulf where daily decisions affect the lives of millions.

Against a background that makes vivid the special mentality of the Arab, the demands of supranational corporations and the distinct national interests of different countries, Samuel Edwards has created in the Exploiters a rich and spellbinding novel of men and women playing for the highest stakes - for oil and the power oil gives.