Olura
An English university professor on holiday in Spain is drawn into a web of intrigue and murder surrounding an intoxicating woman of mystery
Dr. Philip Ardower is fascinated by the stunning beauty in a red cape he encounters on a beach in Spain outside the Hostal de las Olas. While immediately charmed by the lady’s sophistication and pluck, the British academic knows nothing of the enchanting Olura’s personal history, or the rumors that have accompanied her recent arrival as the companion of an African politician. But when an Italian paparazzo in search of scandal is discovered dead in her hotel room, Olura has no one but Ardower to turn to for help. Suddenly they are on the run together, fleeing the police, the hungry press, and determined assailants who wish them grievous harm, on a furious flight that leads them into the treacherous mines and mountains of Basque Country. In a single day, Andower’s once-quiet life is transformed by passion, terror, and violent death into a desperate fight for survival—and a race against the clock to find answers to the perplexing and dangerous mystery of Olura Manoli.
One of the twentieth century’s most prolific and acclaimed purveyors of intrigue and suspense, Geoffrey Household delivers a richly colorful and evocative thriller brimming with action, mystery, and romance. Recalling the very best of cinematic master Alfred Hitchcock, Household’s Olura introduces a heroine readers will not soon forget.
Geoffrey Household
Geoffrey Household (1900–1988) was born in England. In 1922 he earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature from the University of Oxford. After graduation, he worked at a bank in Romania before moving to Spain in 1926 and selling bananas as a marketing manager for the United Fruit Company.
In 1929 Household moved to the United States, where he wrote children’s encyclopedia content and children’s radio plays for CBS. From 1933 to 1939, he traveled internationally as a printer’s-ink sales rep. During World War II, he served as an intelligence officer for the British army, with posts in Romania, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and Persia. After the war, he returned to England and wrote full time until his death. He married twice, the second time in 1942 to Ilona Zsoldos-Gutmán, with whom he had three children, a son and two daughters.
Household began writing in the 1920s and sold his first story to the Atlantic Monthly in 1936. His first novel, The Terror of Villadonga, was published during the same year. His first short story collection, The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories, appeared in 1938. Altogether, Household wrote twenty-eight novels, including four for young adults; seven short story collections; and a volume of autobiography, Against the Wind (1958). Most of his novels are thrillers, and he is best known for Rogue Male (1939), which was filmed as Man Hunt in 1941 and as a TV movie under the novel’s original title in 1976.
