 First edition | |
| Author | Hammond Innes |
|---|---|
| Genre | Thriller |
| Publisher | Collins (UK) Knopf (US) [1] |
Publication date | 1971 |
| Pages | 322 |
Levkas Man is a thriller novel by British author Hammond Innes published in 1971. It tells the story of a doctor who goes to the Greek island of Lefkada (Levkas) with his adopted son to prove a theory about prehistoric man. [2]
The story takes place against the background of the early 1970s, with the Cold War at its peak and the Middle East smouldering with political conflict, and is told by the protagonist, Paul van der Voort. He is a 28-year-old sailor and is just back from a long journey, when he gets involved in a fight at the port area of Amsterdam. He needs to flee after murdering a man and goes back to his childhood home in the city of Amsterdam. His childhood has not been a happy one and the relationship between father and son was full of strain, arguments, abuse and conflict. His father (unbeknownst to him at first) is a famous archaeologist, Dr Pieter van der Voort, who is trying to prove his theory that the pre-historic origins of modern man in Europe, lie in Greece.
Paul finds the house empty, except for his father's housekeeper and secretary, Sonia. Also he is visited by two of his father's fellow archaeologists. He learns that his father has gone on an expedition to Greece but has since disappeared.
A few days later Paul gets himself involved with an international smuggler, who sends him to Malta in order to avoid arrest for murder and pick up illicit antique artifacts from Turkey. Paul decides to take the assignment, as it is an opportunity to go search for his father. The smugglers organized him a charter boat with a crew that consists of a husband and wife. After he has picked up the merchandise, he is confronted by police who think his father is a communist spy under suspicion that his father is funded by the Soviet Union. During his sailing the Aegean Sea, he discovers his father's competing archaeologist is out to take all the credit for his father's discoveries in Greece. He also learns more of the circumstances surrounding his father's disappearance at a dig site where he assaulted one of his assistants.
Following his father's footsteps with help from Sonia, Paul briefly meets his father, but the police are after him so Paul is forced to lead them astray and his father escapes again. The Greek police, the archaeologists, and others go to one of the caves on the island of Levkas. It is here that Dr Van der Voort was at work during his precious expedition to Greece. It appears Dr Van der Voort has been obsessively digging there now again to prove his theory and that he has been exhausting himself. But the doctor is nowhere to be seen. He is found to be trapped behind a rockfall, caused by an earth tremor.
In the climatic scene, the archaeologists start removing the fallen rocks and Paul makes an undersea dive and reaches a way into the cavern where his father is trapped. When father and son meet for one last time, they sit down to talk in the cavern, which is covered in stunning prehistoric paintings which give credence to Dr Van der Voorts theory: modern man migrated into Europe from Africa, not Asia. It also indicates that prehistoric man was violent and that homo sapiens exterminated the older race of Neanderthals.
Dr Van der Voort confirms again to his son his personal view that modern day man is destroying the planet and that they are killing off each other at a terrible rate. When Paul is confronted by his father confessing to murdering his rival, he is shocked. Dr Van DER Voort, having proven himself right, asks Paul to leave him in the cave to die, which he does and returns to the yacht.
In the end Paul burns his bridges and leaves for a new beginning under the chaos of immanent war in Greece. He leaves Sonia and other friends with Greek police, then restrains the Greek police officer who has been following him for smuggling and boarded the charter yacht to escort him back to port. He steals the charter yacht he got for the smuggling assignment and takes off to sea with the smuggled goods, heading south where he will find freedom.
| Levkas Man | |
|---|---|
| Based on | Levkas Man by Hammond Innes |
| Written by | Peter Yeldham |
| Directed by | Carl Schultz |
| Starring | Robert Coleby Marius Goring |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of episodes | 6 x 1 hour |
| Production | |
| Producer | Damien Parer |
| Production companies | Australian Broadcasting Corporation Portman Productions Studio Hamburg Filmproduktion |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | 18 March – 22 April 1981 |
Levkas Man was adapted into a six-episode mini television series by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which aired from 18 March until 22 April 1981. It was a joint Australian–British–West German production, and was shot on location in Greece. [3]
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