Djibuti
Elmore Leonard
Morrow, Oct 12 2010, $26.99
ISBN: 9780061735172
Following their award winning Katrina film, documenter Dara Barr and her top assistant septuagenarian Xavier LeBo travel to Djibouti on their next project; filming the pirates looting international vessels in the Indian Ocean off The Horn of Africa. Their greeting upon arrival at the city located on the southern point of the Red Sea is unfriendly as several foreigners claim CEO status over the piracy and want no films.
They meet a horde of outcasts who belong in a movie like Casablanca. There is the diplomat partnering with a charming popular pirate; both demand a kickback or else. Terrorists like al-Qaeda in Miami Jama provide the filmmakers with a choice between cash and bombings. Finally they encounter eccentric Billy the Texan and his maybe fiancée Helene sailing the world, but he wants to see the pirates in action on the High Seas. All this occurs even before the pair sail on the Indian Ocean to film the piracy.
This exciting trademark Elmore Leonard thriller takes time to gel, but once it does, Djibuti is the usual super skewering of everyone; especially know it all Westerners who reject being a major part of the cause while feeling outraged when the cash crop is piracy. Readers except the xenophobic who omit the latter part of Carl Schurz’s famous full quote “my country right …” will appreciate Mr. Leonard’s entertaining take no prisoners take on the Somalia pirates.
Harriet Klausner
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