70-летний писатель из Западного Клэра опубликовал новый триллер, действие которого разворачивается в революционной Замбии 1970-х годов

A new thriller set in 1970s Zimbabwe has recently been published by a West Clare based writer. Geraint Jones has self-published ‘’, a suspense thriller set in revolutionary war times in the former Rhodesia, what is today Zimbabwe. Mr Jones came to West Clare with his Limerick-born wife two and a half years ago, after spending two decades working as a security consultant in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. He and his wife love living outside Kilrush along the Shannon Estuary, which he describes it as an “amazing” place with a “lovely community”. “My wife and I have both just turned 70, and she has wanted to come back to Ireland for years, and the family have a strong association with Kilkee. The funny thing is, like many Limerick families when they got to the N68 at Kilrush, they didn’t go left, they always went right so we discovered Kilrush a few years ago kind of by accident.” Geraint had previously worked as a contractor in diplomatic security advising the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the European Union on how to keep their diplomats safe. “And before that I was sitting on Spanish trawlers staring at the Indian Ocean waiting for Somali pirates to come over the horizon, which is crazy at my age.” Since moving to Clare, Geraint is free to focus on his writing, and he reveals that the stress of waiting on the phone to ring is now gone for him. “It took a period of adjustment for me to get it into my thick skull that not much was going to happen here that was going to be threatening; you know it took a while to not jump every time the phone rang. I sat down and realised that when I went to bed at night and woke up in the morning, I had a very good chance of coming home that night and just going to my bed,” he said. Writing is something he always wanted to do. He has had a couple of stories published, and used to write for an Australian travel magazine. Then he wrote his first novel called Land Song, which is also set in the former Rhodesia, and examines the lives of ordinary people caught up in the maelstrom of war. The ruination of human lives by war has been his “confounded” experience while working in Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan, he says. His second novel, Beyond the Fever Trees a fictional work based on his own experience, and gives an even-handed account of the conflict as seen through both sides; the guerrillas and the government forces. In the end, the reader is challenged to make up their own mind about the rights and wrongs, and the consequences of violent struggle. “My second novel was meant to be a sequel to Land Song, but because of the time lapse in between, it developed a mind of its own,” he said. “It is based to a degree on fact. During the late 1970s, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army of Robert Mugabe’s forces performed some successful strikes, from their point of view, against the capital city. “But what I have looked at here is their infiltration into what was then called Rhodesia and the security operation that was mounted. “War is not heroism. There are heroes, and there are acts of heroism. But in the main, it is slogging and frustration. “War in Africa in the Tropics is a hot, sweaty, nervous thing and the interludes of combat are very, very short. Hours, days on tracks debating and looking…and then three minutes of action, and then the aftermath.” He says a writer friend of his describes his new work as halfway between Ernest Hemingway and Andy McNab, saying, “but I’m not sure about that…I’d prefer to be associated with Hemingway but that’s probably a bit presumptuous.” Geraint grew up in many African countries due to his father’s work, and prefers to be called an African “an important distinction for someone of my demographic” he says. “I grew up in small administrative stations in the embers of empire. My first recollection is in a little town in what you now call Zambia, and the next recollection is in a place called Jinja in Uganda on the source of the Nile…I grew up in small county capitals, if you like.” The 70-year-old reveals his project is “to write as many books as I can before I shuffle off this mortal coil”. True to his word, he is currently working on a novella which is based on some of the consular cases he witnessed in his previous career. The book is for young adults, and is a cautionary tale for young women planning to leave their safe homes to travel the world. “It’s working title is ‘Smiley Seesay’s Gap Year. And it takes a young woman of Gambian heritage whose parents left Gambia and went to the UK because of the previous regime,” he said. “She was born and brought up in the UK, and is introduced to a visitor from Gambia. “It’s kind of Northanger Abbey in reverse. “She walks into a nasty situation completely unexpected, but I can tell you without spoiling it completely, she lives to tell the story and it works out okay in the end.” He reveals something serendipitous happened as he was preparing for the next book. Concerned about being an elderly white male trying to write from the perspective of a young woman, he approached the father of a local family with teenage daughters to ask if he could see what the girls thought of the draft of his book. It turned out their mother Meadhbh Chambers is a teacher and children’s story writer, and is now editing his work. “So I have my editor here home-grown in West Clare. It tells you a lot about West Clare – it’s amazing,” he said. “And I am still exploring, so if I still have all my marbles in a few years’ time, that’s when I will embark on a west Clare novel.” Beyond the Fever Trees is currently available on Amazon.ie however, Geraint Jones hopes that it will be for sale in bookshops throughout West Clare in the near future. Reporter   |   065 686 4146   |   [email protected] Sharon Dolan D’Arcy covers West Clare news. After completing a masters in journalism at University of Galway, Sharon worked as a court reporter at the Sligo Weekender. She was also editor of the Athenry News and Views.