The Doomed Oasis — Hammond Innes

A sweeping adventure set in the Arabian Desert, where the shadow of British colonialism threatens to destroy a father and son.

Three years ago, nineteen-year-old David Thomas beat his father to death. Actually, David only punched the old man, but it was hard enough to cause him to have a fatal stroke. And the man wasn't really David's father at all: The fight started because David learned that his true father was Col. Charles Stanley Whitaker, a legendary figure who made his fortune in the oil fields of the Arabian Desert.
 
With the help of George Grant, a lawyer he'd just met, David escaped the police and set out to find his real father. But like so many travelers before him, he was swallowed by the desert and never seen again . . .
 
Now, Grant is working for Colonel Whitaker, helping him negotiate the tangled politics of the turbulent Middle East. When he begins asking questions about the circumstances of David's disappearance, he will be forced to confront the nightmare at the heart of the British Empire.
 
A globe-trotting adventure with the sweep of Lawrence of Arabia, The Doomed Oasis is a thrilling political novel, one of the finest ever written by the legendary Hammond Innes.