Stephen Holgate Knihy

A chance meeting at a dinner party in Paris turns the life of Philip Reid, an aging and cynical American diplomat, upside down, sending him back more than twenty years to when he had been a younger and better man. In those days, for a brief moment, Bandula, scion of the island's most powerful family, had been Philip’s closest friend. Now, he finds his onetime companion bitter and humbled by life. In a tale marked by terrorist bombings, political assassination, romance, and intrigue, we follow the tragedies that lead Bandula to a life in exile and Philip to the attainment of dreams that lose their meaning even in the moment of their fulfillment. In their serendipitous meeting, both men gain a chance at redeeming the past.

In a fly-blown bar on the backside of Paris, Kip Weston--drunk, broke and aimlessly wandering Europe--runs into an acquaintance who offers him a job on a small tourist barge around the canals of Burgundy. Kip hesitates, until the friend mentions that an elderly American has been asking after him. For reasons unclear, he is a hunted man. Kip soon finds himself in unanticipated peril when an American guest mistakes him for a "wanted" young man from upstate New York. After the Americans depart, the next party of guests prove even more unsettling. With two bodyguards in tow, Carbonne, an arrogant and mercurial business tycoon arrives with his much younger mistress, Brigitte. Though the rest of the crew makes a show of welcoming him, they clearly know and fear him. It soon becomes clear that the bodyguards are not there to protect Brigitte, but to make her a prisoner because she knows too much about Carbonne's crimes. The plot quickly builds. Soon, Kip and Brigitte undertake a surreptitious love affair that, if discovered, could prove fatal for them both. When the police come looking for Brigitte, the crew runs them off, but everyone realizes the authorities are closing in. As the tension on board ratchets up, a terrified Brigitte agrees to flee with Kip, but they're journey is only starting to reveal the many layers of their situation.

A LETTER FROM THE PAST FORCES A DISGRACED BUREAUCRAT TO CONFRONT HIS FUTURE TANGIER tells two parallel stories: one, a mystery, and the other a spy story set fifty years apart and told in a series of alternating sections. In the first, we follow Christopher Chaffee, a disgraced Washington power broker whose father, a French diplomat, died in a Vichy prison in 1944--or so he had always believed until a letter, received decades after it was posted, upends his life. Soon he is reluctantly inspecting the corkscrew of his own life as he searches the narrow lanes and twisted souls of Tangier's ancient medina in search of the father he never knew. The second is a tale of espionage and betrayal, set in Morocco during WWII. Rene Laurent, Christopher's father, struggles to maintain his integrity--and his life--in the snake pit of wartime Tangier. The stories slowly intertwine as Christopher unravels the mystery of his father's fate, and Laurent becomes trapped in a web of lies and corruption, and caught up, too, in the arms of a woman he knows he shouldn't trust. Ultimately, TANGIER is the story of fathers and sons, the alienation of being a stranger in a strange land, the seductive face of betrayal and, finally, the lengths we'll go to for redemption.

Set against the backdrop of Madagascar's mystique, the story follows an American diplomat grappling with personal demons, including alcoholism and gambling. As he navigates the dangers of disgrace and potential murder, he simultaneously searches for love and redemption. Steve Holgate intricately weaves the island's unique spirit and mystery into this thrilling narrative, creating a captivating tale of self-discovery and resilience.

The novel weaves together themes of political life, coming of age, and family drama, all set against the backdrop of archaeology. It explores the connections between past and present, highlighting the influence of ancestry on personal growth and future possibilities. Through its engaging narrative, the story imparts wisdom about the complexities of life and the impact of history on individual journeys.