An undelivered letter dating from World War II sends a disgraced bureaucrat on a journey to discover what happened to his father and, in the process, discovers his own path to redemption. 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 1944or so he had always believed until a letter, received decades after it was posted, upends his life. Soon, he is searching the narrow lanes and twisted souls of Tangiers ancient medina in search of the father he has never known. At the same time he is reluctantly inspecting the corkscrew of his own life; a search for a parent is always a search for self. The other story is a tale of wartime espionage and betrayal, set in Morocco during WWII. In it we follow Christopher's father, Rene Laurent, as he fights to maintain his souland his lifein the snake pit of wartime Tangier.
The stories slowly intertwine as Christopher unwraps the mystery of his father's fate, and Laurent gets caught up in the intrigues of opposing espionage websand 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 well go to for redemption.
Industry Reviews
"A gripping and persuasive novel, with shades of both Graham Greene and Alan Furst in its atmosphere and the moral challenges handed to its two protagonists, father and son. You won't get to the bottom of anything in Tangier, Christopher Chaffee hears as he sets out to discover what really happened to his missing father in war-time Morocco. With its sexual entanglements and war-time politics, dramatic tension mounts and the questions multiply. It's a really terrific read." - Rosalind Brackenbury, author of The House in Morocco, Becoming George Sand , and The Third Swimmer "TANGIER possesses all the hallmarks of a good international thriller: spies, diplomats, men and women with ambiguous loyalties and motives, smoke-filled cafes, and a protagonist in search of information he might just regret finding out. But it goes beyond that. TANGIER also delivers rich characterization and thought-provoking insights into the psychology of power." -Steve Wiegenstein, author of Slant of Light, This Old World , and The Language of Trees "I have admired the writing of Steve Holgate for as long as I can remember, and count him as a fundamental influence on my own sensibility as a comedy writer. His brilliant, original, and frequently hilarious literary voice is on display everywhere in TANGIER, which has earned its place on my bookshelf among the best works of modern American fiction." - Brent Forrester, writer The Simpsons and The Office "An intriguing trip back in time, as a contemporary American searches for his own identity by tracing the wartime exploits of the French father he never knew in a complex world of spies and counterspies.Set in the exotic and sinister city of Tangier whose descriptions leap so vividly off the page, that the city itself becomes a character in the drama." - Mark York, headwriter of Doug "Writing that lets the storytell itself. Holgate weaves a tight web across a span offifty-five years. A yarn beautifully spun. Forget sleep, turn thepages." - Tony Wolk, author of the Lincoln in Time trilogy
