Through the’50s, soldier/journalist Beaver Nichol tracks a sadistic criminal. A globe-spanning historical thriller about bearing witness—and taking action.
Canadian author Mel Bradshaw’s new book takes its hero from the Korean War to Maurice Duplessis’s Quebec, as well as to an insurrection in Cyprus and CIA coups in Iran and Guatemala. Beaver’s final showdown with his mysterious antagonist, codenamed UFO, will take place in France in the context of the bloody Algerian War of independence.
“On deplaning at Orly close to 11:00 p.m., Beaver wasn’t asked if he had a gun in his suitcase. In a toilet cubicle, he took out and slipped on his holster. What entitled the Browning in it to the designation Hi-Power was its exceptionally large magazine, which contained thirteen 9 mm bullets. Even without a round chambered, that was more than half again as many as its rival automatic pistols. Beaver put the jacket of his tan summer suit back on and loaded the inside pockets with two more full ammunition clips from his suitcase. Thirty-nine rounds total. Should be enough.”
“To the south, one gorgeously symmetrical volcano rose up almost on the city’s doorstep. Beaver asked a postcard seller its name and whether it ever erupted. The man laughed and said not to worry. Mount Pacaya hadn’t blown its top for more than sixty years. Still, once the thought had entered Beaver’s mind, he couldn’t help but think an eruption was coming—an unleashing of the invisible, irresistible forces marshalling this spring against President Árbenz and against his efforts to better the lot of his poorest fellow citizens.”