The Skeleton Coast Contract

Joe Gall Mystery #8

by Philip Atlee

Joe Gall engages in a deadly scramble through the emerging African nations to find a missing mountain of diamonds.

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1968

About the author

Pseudonym of James Atlee Phillips

Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Atlee's first book was an expose about local country club members. An avid flyer, he was a member of the Flying Tigers before WWII. He joined the Marines after Pearl Harbor. He ran Amphibian Airways in Burma, probably for the CIA, and it is from this experience that his first Joe Gall book, Pagoda, came.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joe Gall is a contract agent for the CIA, but this mission, unlike most of his, does not necessarily appear to be tied to national security. Rather, it is tied to the grift of what would be in today’s values be somewhere north of nine trillion dollars of diamonds on the Southwest African coast. The only ones who know where this treasure trove is hidden is a pair of South African mercenary brothers who are languishing in a primitive Congo prison and Gall has to get arrested and then get them out as a prelude to crossing half a continent with a man endless money belt in a race to get the diamonds. Together with such an adventure the reader gets a travelogue about the dangers of the Kalahari desert and a history of the dwindling community of African Bushmen, including a history of Boers and Germans hunting them for sport until they were on the verge of extinction. Once again, Joe Gall operates solo with absolutely no one he can trust or who won’t betray him to the point he gets buried to his neck and covered with honey for killer ants to feast on.