The Set Up: 1984: Britain’s Biggest Drug Bust,
Gretchen Eick, Blue Cedar Press, 2020.
Brian Daldorph review
It’s hard to fault the ambition of Eick’s novel, telling this story of “Britain’s Biggest Drug Bust” that brings into play not only the dangerous maze of Middle Eastern politics, but also the foreign policies of the U.S., U.K. and Israel, involving the CIA, the British secret service (MI5), arms dealers, the list goes on and on. Eick deftly weaves all these threads together.
The basic plot, taken from actual events occurring in the mid-1980s, focuses on the crew of the yacht The Robert Gordon, sailing on a precarious mission off the coast of Lebanon to pick up a huge load of cannabis resin likely grown in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and ferrying it back through the Mediterranean to the UK where it was delivered to drug runners. Turned out it was all a set-up: police and Customs officers were ready to spring their trap.
Eick focuses on the five-member crew of the yacht, led by Keith Brown, the owner of a car-hire business, keen to make a bunch of money by bringing drugs into the UK. He assembles a crew of naifs and sails off to make the pick-up. At every point in the novel, you get the sense that this crew is way out of its depth in these waters, never more so than when they make the pick up off the coast of Lebanon from a group of black-masked, armed men, who just might be a Palestinian faction operating in Lebanon. They don’t really know. From the title of the book, and from plenty of suggestions throughout, we soon get the sense that the crew have been set up by the powers-that-be, pawns in a game that they have small chance of understanding.
The book’s a treasury of inside information about the tangled politics of the time, in particular, the CIA plot, led by William Casey, director of the CIA in the Reagan Administration, to illicitly fund the Nicaraguan Contras fighting a bloody civil war against the left-wing Sandanista government. Eick’s research is impressive (sources listed in the back of the novel) as is her confidence in keeping track of all the tentacles of the beast. The historical context of the novel gives everything a kind of gravity and depth that adds to the import of each scene.
Though Eick’s very good at painting the big picture, she’s best at showing us the plight of the smaller players in this global drama, the crew of the Robert Gordon yacht carrying tons of cannabis into the UK. They don’t understand the politics of it all: they’re all in it for a bit of adventure and a chance to make quick money. Two of the five crew don’t even know about the cargo, yet they still have to face imprisonment, trial and their lives irreparably damaged even after release.
The novel ends with (Eick assures us) an actual exchange between crew member David Bennie and arms dealer and billionaire Adnan Khashoggi (who just might be the mastermind behind all the events here), when Bennie is trying to get his life back together after the trial. Bennie has been working on a yacht in Monaco but has faced police harassment because of his connection with the Robert Gordon case. He realizes that he won’t be able to work on yachts anymore, because of police harassment.
Khashoggi’s limo approaches him on the dock and the man himself speaks to Bennie, sympathizing with him for his trouble. David’s response emphasizes the way that he was just one of the little fish caught in the net of the whole affair: “My mates were just ordinary dudes, not enough smarts altogether to organize a major drug heist.” Khashoggi tells him that he won’t be having any problems in the future, and you get the sense that with all the cards that Khashoggi holds as an international arms dealer, he’ll be good for his word.
Eick’s so good at holding together the central narrative of this story while locations change quickly and characters come and go. We’re taken on a wild ride through the Mediterranean, to Brixton prison, to Cyprus, to Rhodes, to a ranch in Costa Rica used as a staging ground for shipping arms to Nicaragua.
I always got the sense that I was in good hands, that the novelist would bring us, a little breathless, to that last scene in Monaco with Khashoggi saying so much without saying much at all.
Gretchen Eick, Blue Cedar Press, 2020.
Brian Daldorph review
It’s hard to fault the ambition of Eick’s novel, telling this story of “Britain’s Biggest Drug Bust” that brings into play not only the dangerous maze of Middle Eastern politics, but also the foreign policies of the U.S., U.K. and Israel, involving the CIA, the British secret service (MI5), arms dealers, the list goes on and on. Eick deftly weaves all these threads together.
The basic plot, taken from actual events occurring in the mid-1980s, focuses on the crew of the yacht The Robert Gordon, sailing on a precarious mission off the coast of Lebanon to pick up a huge load of cannabis resin likely grown in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and ferrying it back through the Mediterranean to the UK where it was delivered to drug runners. Turned out it was all a set-up: police and Customs officers were ready to spring their trap.
Eick focuses on the five-member crew of the yacht, led by Keith Brown, the owner of a car-hire business, keen to make a bunch of money by bringing drugs into the UK. He assembles a crew of naifs and sails off to make the pick-up. At every point in the novel, you get the sense that this crew is way out of its depth in these waters, never more so than when they make the pick up off the coast of Lebanon from a group of black-masked, armed men, who just might be a Palestinian faction operating in Lebanon. They don’t really know. From the title of the book, and from plenty of suggestions throughout, we soon get the sense that the crew have been set up by the powers-that-be, pawns in a game that they have small chance of understanding.
The book’s a treasury of inside information about the tangled politics of the time, in particular, the CIA plot, led by William Casey, director of the CIA in the Reagan Administration, to illicitly fund the Nicaraguan Contras fighting a bloody civil war against the left-wing Sandanista government. Eick’s research is impressive (sources listed in the back of the novel) as is her confidence in keeping track of all the tentacles of the beast. The historical context of the novel gives everything a kind of gravity and depth that adds to the import of each scene.
Though Eick’s very good at painting the big picture, she’s best at showing us the plight of the smaller players in this global drama, the crew of the Robert Gordon yacht carrying tons of cannabis into the UK. They don’t understand the politics of it all: they’re all in it for a bit of adventure and a chance to make quick money. Two of the five crew don’t even know about the cargo, yet they still have to face imprisonment, trial and their lives irreparably damaged even after release.
The novel ends with (Eick assures us) an actual exchange between crew member David Bennie and arms dealer and billionaire Adnan Khashoggi (who just might be the mastermind behind all the events here), when Bennie is trying to get his life back together after the trial. Bennie has been working on a yacht in Monaco but has faced police harassment because of his connection with the Robert Gordon case. He realizes that he won’t be able to work on yachts anymore, because of police harassment.
Khashoggi’s limo approaches him on the dock and the man himself speaks to Bennie, sympathizing with him for his trouble. David’s response emphasizes the way that he was just one of the little fish caught in the net of the whole affair: “My mates were just ordinary dudes, not enough smarts altogether to organize a major drug heist.” Khashoggi tells him that he won’t be having any problems in the future, and you get the sense that with all the cards that Khashoggi holds as an international arms dealer, he’ll be good for his word.
Eick’s so good at holding together the central narrative of this story while locations change quickly and characters come and go. We’re taken on a wild ride through the Mediterranean, to Brixton prison, to Cyprus, to Rhodes, to a ranch in Costa Rica used as a staging ground for shipping arms to Nicaragua.
I always got the sense that I was in good hands, that the novelist would bring us, a little breathless, to that last scene in Monaco with Khashoggi saying so much without saying much at all.
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