English | ePUB | 3.09 MiB | Books: 7

The Author

Geoffrey Ernest Jenkins (16 June 1920 – 7 November 2001) was a South African journalist, novelist and screenwriter. His wife Eve Palmer, with whom he collaborated on several works, wrote numerous non-fiction works about Southern Africa.

Jenkins was either born in Port Elizabeth South Africa or Pretoria to Ernest Jenkins, an editor, and Daisy Jenkins. At age 17, he wrote and had published A Century of History, which received a special eulogy from General Jan Smuts at the Potchefstroom centenary celebrations. Smuts also wrote the book’s introduction.

Jenkins subsequently won the Lord Kemsley Commonwealth Journalistic Scholarship, which took him to Fleet Street, where he spent World War II as a war correspondent.

While working for the Sunday Times, he became friends with author Ian Fleming, creator of the British secret agent James Bond. Fleming later praised Jenkins’ writing, saying “Geoffrey Jenkins has the supreme gift of originality… A Twist of Sand is a literate, imaginative first novel in the tradition of high and original adventure”.

After the war Jenkins settled in Rhodesia, where he met his wife, author Eve Palmer (1916–1998). They married on 17 March 1950. They had a son named David (born c. 1953).

Jenkins was briefly editor of the newspaper The Umtali Advertiser then became a reporter at The Star newspaper in Johannesburg.

The Books

A Bridge of Magpies

U-boat off the Diamond Coast …

The U – boat veered. This was the moment I’d been waitng for. I dived. The icy water was a terrible shock. I went down, down, down. Then the U – boat’s black shadow came between me and the surface, the hulk trailing weed and rust. As I kicked myself upwards my hands touched something smooth and round, with a small propeller sticking out from it. I shot to the surface, gasping from fear and lack of air. Denny was coming towards me in the Gaok. I yelled, “keep away! There’s a half fired torpedo under her…”

A Cleft of Stars

The plane was really near now. But as I flung myself over the wall I saw Rankin kneeling, rifle to shoulder. The range was down to point-blank; there was nothing I could do.

The plane’s engine drowned the sound of the shot, but I knew Rankin had fired- and hit his target.

“Rankin! You bloody murdering bastard!”

But my words were swamped by a tearing crash as the plane hit the side of the mountain…

A Grue of Ice

My hands were already at Walter’s throat as he fought to get clear of his harness. I kicked his feet from under him as he fumbled. I was still held in the strait-jacket grip of the Hotchkiss harness. Walter fell, rolled, dragged himself on one elbow, pullin the Luger from his waistband. He raised the automatic to fire.

Hunter Killer

A top-secret mission to launch a revolutionary Anglo-American missile axed by a budget-conscious government; a nuclear submarine carrying to a secret destination the scientist most concerned with its vindication, who happens to be the Vice-President of the United States; a combination of powerful forces intent on preventing the Vice-President arriving in time for the countdown; a British submarine ace who will stop at nothing to ensure the mission’s success and who is none other than Geoffrey Peace, R.N., that memorable figure from A Twist of Sand; these are the ingredients of Geoffrey Jenkins’s latest riveting thriller, set in the uncharted coral seas of the Indian Ocean, where the elements also play their unpredictable part.

Add to this magnificent sea story, set a few years from now, a twist of fate which suddenly makes the daring mission one of vital significance for the world, and you have the distinctive brand of adventure which Geoffrey Jenkins has made peculiarly his own.

The River of Diamonds

This adventure carries the reader on a rising tide of suspense as a seabed diamond-mining operation runs up against malevolent natural forces bordering on the super-natural and encounters a mysterious “collector of deserts” – Shelborne – whose mystical communication with nature and obvious mental energy seems buried on Mercury Island, a guano-covered hell-hole. John Tregard, the young narrator, stumbles but never falls in his determination to solve the enigma of the island; its strange occupant and odd pheno-mena – the “Glory Hole” and its secret, the death-dealing rattles ironically named “The Bells of St. Mary’s” and the furtive smell of diamonds. Mr. Jenkins combines an imaginative flair for story-telling with scientific sense. And if the impact of the ending seeps away a bit with overly contrived coincidence, it is good Hollywood.

Scend of the Sea

In 1909, the crack Blue Anchor liner, the Waratah, sinks without trace, or survivors, off the coast of South Africa. In 1967, the Gemsbok, a Viscount airliner of South African Airways disappears in exactly the same place. To some it is merely an uncanny mystery. To others a tragedy. People like Ian Fairlie, captain of the weather ship Walvis Bay–whose father was the pilot of the Gemsbok and whose grandfather was the first officer of the Waratah. Ian Fairlie has sworn that he will resolve the mystery. But to do so, he must face cyclonic winds and mountainous seas, risking his ship, his life and the woman he loves… “Geoffrey Jenkins can write with a rare compelling fervour.”

A Twist of Sand

Stein saw the white death in front of him and blenched. His face turned a sickly green and he pulled out the Luger. “Get back!” he screamed. “Astern, astern!” He groped madly for the telegraph, pitching John, who was at the wheel, on the plating of the bridge. I was afraid of Stein, but I was scared to death of the sand-bars of the Curva dos Dunas. “You bloody fool!” I shouted. As I spun the wheel back I hit Stein across the face with the back of my left hand and he went reeling to his knees… “The reader reaches the last page panting.”