With One Hand Waving Free

Roger Drummond is persuaded by his ambitious wife to take employment with Merritt & Thwaite, a company supplying medical equipment to Third World countries. At first he finds the job tedious and his life meaningless until he begins to take an interest in the company's client countries and becomes involved in a campaign to support the recently-elected left-wing government of Arawak, an island-nation in the Caribbean.
Eventually, the company's fortunes decline, as one project after another either falls through or fails to live up to expectations. As the directors attempt to raise a loan in the City, Drummond is approached by a representative of International Enterprises (which turns out to be a CIA proprietary company) with the offer of a loan-on condition that it is eventually allowed to take over the company.

Assigned to accompany a consignment of medical equipment to Arawak, Drummond finds himself in the company of shipboard thieves and the redoubtable Reverend Mr Bassfield Thomas, an Arawakian preacher intent on national liberation.
In Arawak, Drummond continues a torrid affair, begun in London, with Davinia Lee, Arawak's fiery Health Minister. The right-wing opposition, egged on by the CIA, is intent on causing trouble for the government, but the threat to Drummond's happiness come from an entirely unexpected direction...