The Rig

Collee ( A Paper Mask ) strikes black gold with this taut drama, which pits a blue-collar worker and a Third World bureaucrat against a ruthless petroleum conglomerate in collusion with Madagascan politicians. After Norco Oil shuts down a dry test well, the entire Canadian drilling crew perishes in a fiery plane crash following takeoff. The Madagascan government hires McCabe Drilling to inventory the $40-million-dollar rig with an eye to buying it themselves. The job falls to Spence, an oil worker on the skids (and the bottle) after a messy divorce and a crippling accident on a McCabe site. Cora Skipton is suspicious of Norco and the crash that killed her husband--Spence's best friend--and asks him to see what he can find out. Spence asks the right questions of all the wrong people, but his has-been reputation and lack of written proof deny him credibility. Then Cora's murder spurs Spence to superhuman efforts to find the truth and try to derail the powerful Norco. The exotic Madagascar setting shimmers realistically, the oil rig looms as a menacing behemoth, and even the minor characters achieve major status as the reader is never sure whom to believe right up to the perfect ending. (June)