Publisher's Synopsis
In The Oraman Road author Christopher T. Rand brings readers a dramatic and complex story of strategy and intrigue set within the film industry and the Middle East drug world.
Bernie Vreeland is a freelance filmmaker in Los Angeles shooting random scenes for Tony Adrian, a wealthy movie buff. Adrian is soon to start a documentary on the international drug trade from a studio in Rimshot: Pacifico, the building of a bigger independent producer, Ray Austin. With his partners, Austin is helping finance Adrian's documentary and believes the key to its narrative thrust lies in the Middle East. As a young man, Bernie worked as a CIA case officer in Asia with a man named Rich Leonard, who was fluent in Kurdish and knowledgeable about drug routes throughout the Middle East, and Austin approaches Bernie for assistance on the project. Bernie thinks Rich may be dead, but when he describes his past jobs, Austin asks Bernie to try finding Rich to see if he's still alive and bring him in on the project.
Enter Bristol Coleman. He approaches a neighbor of Rimshot's, Van Vangemeren, a surly old man in exile from a fiefdom he once ran with Gulf Oil in Florida. Van owns a whole city block of houses and storage compounds. Coleman demands Vangemeren rent him space from which to conduct surveillance, search and even destroy missions in the Los Angeles area, tracking international criminals and terrorists. Vangemeren harshly rebuffs him, so Coleman decides to focus his efforts on Austin, who breaks down and grants Coleman office space for a South African, Peter Maartens.
As Bernie mounts his quest for Rich Leonard, the missing figure, Maartens pursues his real project-which is to undermine Austin's operations and make sure the drug documentary never gets made. Vangemeren and Austin join forces in retaliation. After a showdown and a shocking expose from Maartens' past, the unfolding saga of the Middle East drug world reaches its ultimate drastic climax.
