Gold Mine.

Published in 1970, Gold Mine confirmed Wilbur Smith's command of the high-stakes adventure novel set against the industrial landscape of his native southern Africa. The action unfolds deep beneath the veld at the Sonder Ditch, a fictional Witwatersrand gold mine, where the capable general manager Rod Ironsides finds himself caught between a dangerous love affair and a conspiracy he only dimly perceives. A ruthless financier, scheming to manipulate the international gold market, intends to engineer a catastrophe underground - a deliberate breach that would send a wall of water and mud through the workings and crash the mine's share price. Smith braids corporate intrigue, romance, and the visceral peril of men working miles below the surface into a propulsive narrative, and the novel's blend of meticulously researched mining detail and relentless pace established the template for the bestsellers that followed. It was adapted for the screen in 1974 as Gold, starring Roger Moore.