Concessions and Betrayals

An American engineer finds himself in Arabia in Wesley's WWII novel.

Hank Simmons journeys from San Francisco to Dhahran as the Allies are landing in Normandy: they can't win the war without petroleum from a starving desert kingdom. Hank's mission: help the Arabian American Oil Company build its first refinery and run its new marine terminal.

An OSS agent helps Hank recruit construction workers in the fallen capital of Italian East Africa and pay their families in provinces under Nazi control. But living conditions in the segregated encampments at Ras Tanura worsen as the fighting in Europe is coming to an end.

Hank is caught in an escalating series of conflicts between the Arabs, Italians, and Americans: the objectives of the stakeholders are as merciless as the war itself.

A fascinating, multi-faceted novel about a forgotten chapter in the history of the most powerful oil-producing kingdom in the Persian Gulf.

Early Praise for Concessions and Betrayals:

"The story of the Italians in the Saudi oil patch has long needed to be told. Trapped far from home and forced to live in squalor, they nevertheless were essential to the development of the Saudi oil industry. Even readers who know Aramco's early history will learn a lot from this book's fascinating narrative"

-Thomas W. Lippman, author of Crude Oil, Crude Money

"A stunning achievement: William Wesley has given us not just a riveting, page-turning novel full of character and color, but also the richest and most complete historical account yet of the fateful birth of the U.S.-Saudi alliance and the post-World War II world petroleum order."

Hugh Wilford, author of America's Great Game

"A sweeping WWII tale set in a harsh, forbidding, beautiful landscape, William Wesley's account of the collaboration between American oil interests and the nascent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is nothing less than epic.

To build a marine terminal on the Persian Gulf that could refine and export only a few years after the discovery of the greatest oil field on the planet demanded an international team of geologists, drillers, engineers, architects, oil men, laborers, and of course, politicians.

This is their story, a story on the grandest scale, exhilarating and surprising at every turn. The innovations needed to surmount the staggering challenge; the cultural clashes and quirks; the cast of many, many thousands speaking different languages; a founding king, a dying president, a young man from California with a gal waiting back home - it's all here - human, heroic, and hugely engrossing."

-Lynn Stegner, author of For All the Obvious Reasons

"The author's prose is simple but effective...in this exposition-heavy novel that often reads more like a memoir. Even so, the book provides a rare window into the birth of one of the 20th century's most fascinating and impactful industries...a flawed but fascinating novel."

-- Kirkus Reviews