Ken Barris
THE STOOPING OF AQUILA by Tony Spencer- Smith (Manx)
Tony Spencer-Smith won the 1992 M-Net Book Prize for a teen novel, The Man Who Snarled at Flowers. The Stooping of Aquila, an “erotic thriller”, is his first for adults.
The book is in the Wilbur Smith mould – villain Damion Storm is a typical Wilbur Smith event, as is Lauren Steel, the beautiful, karate-kicking ecologist hero. Yet there is probably a greater emphasis on sex, while action is relatively downplayed. There is a slightly stodgy quality to much of the action, which lets up towards the end. Another difference is that Spencer- Smith is a better writer than Smith when it comes to verbal surfaces.
The novel plays out mostly in Cape Town, where the development of an ecologically sensitive stretch of Table Mountain is at issue. Like many thriller-writers, Spencer- Smith dabbles in stereotypes:the Afrikaners in the novel all sound like their name should be Van der Merwe, there is the devious Jewish accountant, and Damion Storm’s sado-masochistic ice-blond accomplice is of course German. And what does one make of names like Storm and Steel?
The Stooping of Aquila has the hallmarks of self-publication, though Manx has published other titles. The paragraph layout is inconsistent, and there are a couple of glaring errors.
This is not a remarkable book, but it is an absorbing, entertaining example of its genre.
Ken Barris’s latest novel is Evolution (Zebra)