Today's guest blog is by Martin Granger who has been
making documentary films for thirty years. In that time he has won more than
100 international film awards. His work has ranged from directing BBC’s Horizon
to producing a BAFTA nominated science series for Channel 4. His novels,
although fiction, are based upon his exploits in the film industry.
Have you ever
thought about who owns the oceans? It’s a pretty big question, two thirds of
our planet is covered in them. So what is there to own you might ask. Take
minerals, food and energy for starters. It’s estimated that energy from the
oceans could replace eighteen million tonnes of oil and that their mineral
content is worth billions. Most war and
corporate crime is about territory and possession, so what will happen when
people wake up to the fact that these resources are up for grabs? This is the question
that set me writing “Oceans on Fire” a thriller where I began to think what
would happen if governments and multinational turned to lawlessness at sea, the
location for a new crime wave.
I used to ply my
trade as a documentary film director. One commission was to make a television
series on the resources of the seas. The schedule was crazy. A fourteen day
trip around the world filming in five countries. Most of the time my cameraman
and I had no idea what day it was let alone the time. We filmed on drilling
ships at sea, ocean thermal energy plants in Hawaii and deep sea mining sites
between specks of sand called coral atolls in the South Pacific. Getting the
footage wasn’t too difficult but, because our travel agent forgot that we were
crossing the dateline, our accommodation and travel was a nightmare. So I made
my protagonist, Nathalie, take the same journey. Of course, her journey was
fraught with more than botched travel arrangements, she had international
corruption and sabotage to deal with.
The book also
deals with The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or the catchy
title UNCLOS for short. Sounds boring, is boring. Pages and pages of
international agreements defining the rights of nations in their use of the
oceans. Twenty years to write and still the United States haven’t ratified it.
So where does this fit into a crime thriller? Well, to have crime you have to
break the law, and UNCLOS is the nearest to the law of the ocean that you are
going to get. So if my senator gets caught in a S&M sex scandal just before
he’s going to agree to this law people are going to ask questions.
Oceans on Fire is not about cops and robbers. “We are a film company, we make films…
we are not a detective agency Nathalie.” as her film producer points out. But
it is about crime, the sort of crime that comes about when there are huge
riches to be gained and governments and multinationals who can steal them from
under our noses. It’s also about territory. Currently a nation with a coastline
can claim two hundred nautical miles of the seabed and its natural resources
from that coastline. Evidently here I must have had a premonition when one of
my characters protests that someone is “claiming that we are an artificial
island with territorial rights.” This was written months before the Chinese
started constructing artificial islands in the ocean causing the scary headlines
“US-China war over South China Sea?” For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that
that’s one thriller that never gets written.
Oceans on Fire -
When Nathalie
Thompson’s cameraman doesn’t show at the airport alarm bells start to ring.
But, with a TV commission on the table and a job to do, she sets off across the
world to make a documentary on ocean energy and its positive effects on climate
change. As the camera rolls Nathalie’s
worst nightmares slowly unfold; accidents happen, drilling rigs sink and marine
structures are mysteriously damaged. At the same time a US senator, involved in
a controversial new law concerning ownership of the seas, is caught in a sordid
sex scandal. With rumours of bribery and
corruption at every turn there’s more to her film footage than shale fracking
and ocean engineering. In her quest to uncover the truth, Nathalie is in for a
nasty surprise as she finds herself embroiled in a dangerous world of
conspiracy, mayhem and sabotage.
Martin Granger’s OCEANS ON FIRE is published by Red Door,
25 June 2015. www.martingrangerbooks.com. He is also the author of MANILA HARBOUR, Red Door. You can also follow him @mgrangerbooks and find him on Facebook.
1 comment:
Looking forward to getting my copy - grateful for the heads up. It's a helluva subject.
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