|
Cast against the civil war and genocide in the Sudan, ACTS OF FAITH is an epic novel of faith, heroism, greed, betrayal, zealotry, love, obsession, and ultimately murder. The rich cast of characters is made up of aid workers and bush pilots, driven by a sincere desire to help the starving multi-ethnic tribes of the Sudan. Some are motivated by a missionary zeal to convert savages to Christianity, some by less religious but a still deeply rooted concern for humanity. Still others are adventurers and opportunists who see a means to an end by providing services in the aid program.
Douglas Braithwaite is a Texas aviator and former UN pilot, now managing Knight Air Services. His ceaseless energy helps him deliver countless planeloads of medical aid and food into the rebel-controlled Nuba mountains, the no-go zones into which the United Nations will not venture. His two partners are a multiracial Kenyan, Fitzhugh Martin, who is seeking to put his life together after failed marriages and business reversals, and the brash, daredevil pilot, Wesley Dare. The entrepreneurial Dare's cynicism and pragmatic vision of his aid work hides the heart of a man who will give his all for the woman he loves. The three pilots build a lucrative private flying service and discover that they are motivated by different angels, or perhaps demons, as their business enterprise flourishes. Together, they encounter an opportunity to do more than merely deliver aid to the dangerous bush country airfields when they meet Sudanese People's Liberation Army Colonel Michael Goraende.
Quinette Hardin is a young, born-again Christian from Waterloo, Iowa, whose efforts to raise money to free Dinka slaves by buying them back from their Muslim captors leads her to a mission to Sudan. She proves to be a natural at dealing with the press and charming the natives. She is hired by the Worldwide Christian Union and often flies with Knight Air into Colonel Goraende's desert stronghold, where she meets Colonel Goraende, changing her life forever.
Ibraham Idris is Chief of a semi-nomadic Arab tribe and the warlord commanding a detachment of murahaleen --- renegades hired by the Khartoum government --- bent on annihilating the black infidels in the South, setting him up for conflict with the Christian mission workers.
ACTS OF FAITH is a sweeping saga of the politics, religion and economics of poverty in the third world, and of the successes and failures of relief workers drawn to the world's poorest and most enigmatic continent.
Philip Caputo first explored Africa three decades ago by foot and camelback, and has been drawn back many times to the dark continent by its ferocious beauty, history and people. In the vein of James Clavell's SHOGUN and Graham Greene's THE QUIET AMERICAN, ACTS OF FAITH sweeps us to high adventure in far away places, thrusting the reader into today's headlines.
--- Reviewed by Roz Shea
 Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
Back to top.
|
