Robert A. Kingsley's Page

It is exactly 75 years ago when war broke out in the Pacific.  Pearl Harbor was bombed, Wake Island was lost and the Japanese forces stormed south through Malaya. After 55 days Singapore fell and the battle for the Dutch East Indies began in earnest. Despite furious Allied resistance, Java, the administrative center, was soon encircled on all sides. The Dutch government shipped out all currency and other valuables to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands. However, with the Japanese already at Java's gates, a load of gold is discovered left behind in a local bank.
A damaged airliner is hurriedly repaired, a scratch crew is assembled and their orders are to fly the gold to safety in Australia.

But a malignant twist of fate intervenes. Sudden technical problems with the airplane force the crew to abandon the flight and unload and hide the cargo of gold in a remote spot. Several crew members are killed when they are attacked by a hostile population. The survivors barely manage to escape and when they  reach friendly territory, they find out they are posted as deserters and wanted for theft of an airplane and the cargo of gold.

The few surviving crew members somehow struggle through the war, and after its end they try to retrieve "their" gold. But the jinx is still there and they are haunted by misfortune, violence and death. Every time the gold seems to be within their grasp, fate intervenes and they have to start all over again. And the hunt becomes frantic when others start to sniff at the trail of the Java Gold.

Years of research into the history of South East Asia and especially the Dutch East Indies inspired me to write this book. I offer the readers a story that is woven into a solid framework of historical facts and a glimpse into a period of history that is seldom used as the background for a novel. It took me several years to complete Book One and originally intended it as a short and snappy “adventure story. But it soon turned out that the subject was too interesting to be treated in such a cavalier manner. As a result, the book not only has action, and suspense, but now also mingled with human drama and romance.

Having taken this step, I decided it was going to be a multipart story. Thus, the original book title “The Java Gold” became the title of the series and book one became “The Odyssey” as it describes the shattering of the crew and their slow way back. As I did my research and found out more and more, it became very hard to prevent the facts swamping the story and turning it into history textbook! The solution was to start a blog, basically an “overflow area” where I can publish all these other interesting things that are to good to discard.

“The Odyssey” has had a number of five stars reviews, on Amazon and Goodreads. Vigilant Reader was one of them and highly recommends this book to readers looking for adventure stories and/or historical fiction situated in the mid 20^th century.
I am also proud to say that “The Odyssey” reached the semi-finals (the top 10) of the 2016 Adventure Writers Competition.
Book Two, "Winds of Fortune" is now available too and Book Three "Deadly Skies" is 'under construction'. I intend to complete this volume in 2017.

So, readers, my series of books is ready for you to enjoy the tale, to be amazed at what happened in that remote corner of the world and to want to know more about it!