Linton Morrell – författare

General Clive Colin O''Reith has invested $200 million to bring a giant oilfield on line in Afghanistan. A new warlord has just taken over. The Shah in Persia is shaking on his Peacock throne. The pipeline runs through South Persia. If the Shah goes down, so does the oilfield. He needs powerful political influence DC to save his investment. Sir George P. Cardinal McDonough can sway the Pope (Paul VI). O''Reith is a friend of General Haig, Chief of Staff to President Nixon. Nixon is in big Watergate trouble. O''Reith offers to save Nixon if Nixon will help him save his oilfield. A deal is struck. Unfortunately their well laid plans miscarry.

In this, Volume I of The Golden Lane Trilogy, we begin the career of Clive Colin O''Reith, International Oil man. He is haunted by a dream that recurs. This is the dream: In the night, O''Reith dreamed again that Holly No.1 burned out of control. The billowing flames, roiling and angry, drove the doomed derrick man ever higher into the skeletal structure of the steel derrick. Like a man mesmerized, rigid and unable to move, he watched the frantic silhouette stiffen and quiver.

For a moment the smoking man flailed helplessly in the incandescent air. Then he pitched forward like an awkward diver, cart wheeling into first one, then another, of the glowing gifts. Finally he plummeted, head first, into the inferno.

In this, Volume III of The Golden Lane trilogy, General Clive Colin O''Reith faces certain ruin if he cannot reverse the declining oil production of his oil company. He is in his fifth decade. His sexual power is dwindling, all the more daunting in that he keeps two women. He can no longer enjoy a three martini lunch. A war wound is causing him to limp. He has a recurring nightmare in which he is falling. Distracted by his minor disabilities, he is drawn into a conflict in Central America. It is a scheme to obtain new oil concessions. His British business partner, a former Intelligence Officer is a friend of the Prime Minister. Expecting to get a plush oil concession, together they promote the candidacy of the exiled ex-dictator of Venezuela to become the CIA-sponsored President of ''Greater'' Guatemala. General O''Reith''s wife, a Wampas Baby of 1928, Best Actress Oscar winner of 1950, now a directress, is filming The Golden Lane, an oil field movie, in Lake Maracaibo. The General is her reluctant technical adviser. It all becomes unhinged.