Counter-Coup

Balembi is a newly independent state in the heart of Africa. President Kasaboru is striving to develop the country along democratic, Western lines, but is menaced by the spectre of tribal conflict prominent both internally and in border states... 

Added to this is the pressure from outside: Balembi’s Russian-backed Communist neighbours are encouraging a revolution.

Philip Morgan, formerly of the Metropolitan Police, returns by special invitation to the former British Colony of his childhood to take up the post of Security Adviser to President Kasaboru. 

However, within days a violent coup is put into action and the president is overthrown the rebel and rival politician Joro Nyanga.

The struggle is fierce and bloody, the savagery worse than the worst fears, and as Balembi slides into chaos Philip and Kasaboru set off across the country with Jane, a newly arrived doctor, and just two of the president’s remaining supporters. 

Their aim is to reach the only town still loyal to Kasaboru and rally resistance there but violence, rape and torture follow perilously close every step of the way.

With the prospect of United Nations intervention looming, a race against time develops, with Nyanga hunting down the fugitives while Kasaboru and Philip try to organize a counter-coup that will restore the legitimate government and bring peace to Balembi. 

Meanwhile the major cities and bush slide into anarchy with mass murder and chaos.

Counter-Coup is an explosive adventure thriller, written on the grand scale and in the great popular tradition.

‘A well-crafted, gripping thriller’ – Thomas Waugh

‘Entertainment in the traditional style’ – Kirkus Reviews 

‘old-time-whodunit'- Kirkus Reviews 

Michael Allen was born in Peterborough in 1939 and was educated at Oundle and Queens' College, Cambridge. Between leaving school and going to Cambridge, he worked for six months on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune in New York. He now works as an Area Administrator at the University of Bath, and lives with his wife and two children at Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire.