Hodgepodge

TITLE Denver Is Missing
AUTHOR D. F. Jones
PUBLISHER Berkley –mass market paperback -256pp
COPYRIGHT 1971
PRINTING 1974

Written in the era of great disaster films such as The Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno and Earthquake, this book could have been made into such a film with one exception – it focuses more on the four main characters than the disaster.

 

The event that underlies the story is the release of huge volumes of nitrogen when a expedition to penetrate the earth’s mantle succeeds. He release is not a onetime event, however, as the nitrogen continues to spew causing a great cloud to drift over the U.S. mainland. While the nitrogen is harmless, in the high concentrations, it actually thins the oxygen to a dangerous level, causing problems for people with breathing or heart problems and eventually worsens to affect any body.

 

The four main characters are:

                Mitch - a geologist who was a key member of the team that released the gas

                Bette – a doctor who is friends with Mitch who is deeply scarred by her experience in Denver

                Bill – The English captain of the sailing yacht Mayfly. He is a friend of Bette who is a very good sailor.

                Karen – the girl friend of Bill who has an interesting past.

 

As things gets bad in Northern California – a tidal wave among other things – Our impromptu band sails south on the Mayfly looking to escape and start over. Things are not good in San Diego so they end up sailing for Australia. The main story deals with this odyssey as well as the inevitable personal relationships that develop in such close quarters.

 

The pace of the novel is steady, and while not quite a page-turner, it kept my interest up. We don’t learn a lot about the characters past but we do get to know how they feel now in a close sense. The Sailing details are solid and exciting at times. What I liked about the novel was that while Jones focuses on the four main characters, he brings the pending disaster back into focus when needed and the description of the aftermath once the geological climax has occurred is well done and believable.

 

Not a must-read novel but if you run across it in a library or used book store it will be worth your time.

Rating       Three Rings of Saturn