Empty Quarter — David Marion Wilkinson

There are many ways for a young man to go to hell when trying to find himself. Logan Wilson knows. Deadended in Texas, about to lose his fiancée Caitlin, Logan has impulsively committed himself to work a risky exploratory oil rig in Saudi Arabia's Rub al Khali desert, the bleak Empty Quarter.

The Empty Quarter is a daunting place of heat, sand and scorpions where oil riggers work under a boss, Jamie Strong, who is Logan's increasingly unreliable and possibly unstable friend. As they precariously search for a legendary high-pressure gas reservoir, Logan is plunged into dangerous depths in his relations with Jamie, the other roughnecks, and the oil company. The consequences could be explosive, Logan realizes as he desperately struggles with his situation and with himself. He now harbors a single barebones plan -- to survive the hell of The Empty Quarter.

The Empty Quarter is one of those remarkably gripping stories that leaves the reader a little energy-sapped because of his, or her, involvement in the lives of unusual characters in an unusual setting. This tale of drilling into the earth is, in fact, more about drilling into the souls of men.

-- Terry Kay