Kirjahaku

"Time Well Spent" is a personal account of Ken Ryeland's training as a motor fitter in Birmingham, where he served his apprenticeship with British Railways (London Midland Region) from 1957 to 1963.

Tribal Gathering is a collection of stories set in an imaginary West African state shortly after gaining its independence from the British in 1962. Struggling to come to terms with the tribalism, nepotism, corruption and greed that flourishes at all levels of society is part of every-day life and relatively simple compared to the problems of surviving two military coups and a civil war. It is against this backdrop and that of a rapidly failing infrastructure that the stories evolve. From the dry heat of the Northern Desert to the suffocating humidity of the Delta, the stories tell of the daily ordeal as the characters try to live out their lives against all the odds. Betrayal, revenge, ignorance, pride and stupidity intermingled with witchcraft, African Deities and Freemasonry, these stories have it all and Ken Ryeland deals with them in his usual consummate way to provide interesting and compelling reading.

The Last Bature is a policeman's story set in Nibana, an imaginary West African state, shortly after gaining its independence from the British in 1962. What begins as a straightforward investigation by the last British policeman in the Northern Region, and an African police inspector, quickly turns to intrigue when the intelligence services of the superpowers vie with each other to secure a breakthrough in weapons technology. Combine this with the machinations of an irrational regional military governor hell-bent on overthrowing his brother, the head of state, and the basis for an exciting story emerges. With the cold war as a backdrop and a second coup imminent, the action moves quickly from the heat of the Omdu Hills, through the stench of the Laguna slums to the waters of the Bight of Laguna, giving the reader an insight into the grubby world of espionage and life in West Africa during the turbulent sixties.

The Mine is a political thriller set in Nibana, an imaginary West African state, several years after gaining independence from the British in 1962. With the Eastern Region about to secede and Nibana heading for civil war, the head of state invites an archaeology professor and his team to investigate some ruins in the Northern Region. The professor's astonishing finds initiate a chain of extraordinary events that lead to abduction. A police investigation ensues, but becomes complicated when an Eastern Bloc country is commissioned to print currency for the secessionists, and an MI6 agent, working with the police, must hinder the secession by sabotaging the currency. An abandoned mine becomes the focal point when the agent, police and archaeologists are incarcerated there and discover its secret. Murder, breathtaking corruption, river pirates and rogue army officers; Ken Ryeland manipulates these ingredients in his usual consummate way to provide an exciting political thriller.