Entertainment, Books - Army Times

Patterson peers into oil’s dark side

Richard North Patterson is a writer with a great sense of timing. Contemporary issues provoking heated debate often turn up in his novels.

“Exile” (2007) addresses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Race” (2007) involves a black presidential candidate. His 16th, “Eclipse” (Henry Holt, $26), published this month, is steeped in the world’s lust for oil.

“When I write a book, I’m ahead of the curve,” says Patterson, 61. “If I’d written it last week, you could say it’s ripped from the headlines.”

Patterson’s provocative novels — others have focused on abortion, capital punishment and the gun lobby — aren’t just about the issues. They also are, Patterson hopes, pure entertainment.

“My goal is to tell a terrific story with tension, vivid settings and characters, and consequences that people care about.”

“Eclipse” takes place in the fictional African country of Luandia. It’s based on modern-day Nigeria.

“The fact that the Niger Delta is hell on Earth makes it a compelling center for a story of adventure and suspense,” he says.

The plot is inspired, in part, by Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian human-rights activist who was executed in 1994.

“Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian novelist and playwright who, against great odds, organized a mass movement to protest the plunder of oil from the Niger Delta and the ruin of its environment,” Patterson says.

In “Eclipse,” attorney Damon Pierce travels to Luandia to defend novelist/activist Bobby Okari, who is charged in the deaths of three oil company workers.

Patterson’s descriptions of the American’s experiences in lawless Luandia are based on his own trip to Nigeria — he hired his own security team — before he wrote the book.

“I’m certainly no adventurer,” says Patterson, who splits his time between San Francisco and Martha’s Vineyard, “but without seeing Nigeria and meeting all the people I did, including Saro-Wiwa’s brother, I couldn’t have written this novel.”

His trip exposed him to the country’s political corruption, poverty and environmental decimation — much of it linked to the world’s hunger for oil and those who reap the profits. “For all the billions generated by oil,” he says, “Nigerian people really don’t benefit from it at all.”

Next up for Patterson is “The Spire,” a psychological suspense novel, out in September.

He’s also working on a novel that deals with another controversial question: post-traumatic stress disorder as a criminal defense.