After Wednesday's disappointing plague thriller, it feels good to dive into some gritty Grecian action courtesy Gary Goshgarian and his debut novel, ATLANTIS FIRE! Goshgarian later adopted a pen name, Gary Braver, under which he wrote a series of successful commercial technothillers, but it's this early, rough hewn work that we're interested in today. It's about a team of broken down wreck divers and dirty dreamers, searching for the impossible off the shores of Santorini ... but what they find will be more than any of them can handle!
Goshgarian writes with feeling, never overburdening the reader but always giving us the perfect glimpse into his characters' inner selves as they work, in this case as archaeological divers looking for the remains of amphora cargo from ancient Grecian freighters. Of course somebody on the team has bigger dreams, involving theories of sunken cities: we're talking Atlantis, baby! The remnants of the Colonels' reign are trying to shake them down, and the semi-legal avenues the team pursues to keep at their quest make up much of the plot's grist, as does the devil's bargain they strike with local bigwig Bouboulis: some of their specialized diving equipment in exchange for free reign over the islands. Maybe they should have wondered why the millionaire Bouboulius needs their dinky little wunderwaffen, but by then it's too late: Santorini's about to blow its top!
Goshgarian threads the needle, raising tensions to nerve wracking heights while keeping the story tight, even as he threatens to blow an entire regional unit off the map. This is sublime thriller territory, with an engrossing cast of flotsam characters, washed up on the shores of destiny: Sarkis, Deke, Bernardo, Jessie, all finely drawn with their hopes, fears, pushed beyond their limits by the wracking tides of infinity. Bravo to Goshgarian for this delicious piece of vintage mayhem! Atlantis Fire earns a full four sunken amphora out of four!
Avon Books, 1980
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