NOTHING/EVERYTHING DISCONNECTS/CONNECTS

About the Book

From that most soul-searching of questions confronting humanity, “No hungry children—why can’t we get that far?” (ironically posed in a lush gay London nightclub) to the call to prayer blaring across Algiers’ Casbah, “Allahu Akbar! [‘God is great!’]” this novel depicts how the fanatic-inflamed divisions between Muslim Middle East and Judeo-Christian West are fraying the ties that bond humanity. Its hero straddles both worlds. To save his sister, Omar Naaman, nineteen, betrayed comrades and country during Algeria’s fight for independence from colonial rule. At the war’s end, the defeated French, grateful for his double-dealing service, whisked him to France, bestowing a new identity, Remy Montpellier. Years later, Remy is coerced by the French DGSE (their intelligence service) to return incognito to Algeria, where as Omar he is still branded as a traitor, in fact, as the last of the “Seven Devils,” the first six “great collaborators” having been tracked down and killed by Algerian agents. Sent to investigate the gay-bashing murder of an American embassy attaché, who (DGSE suspected) was trafficking classified documents, Remy gradually moves from pursuer to pursued. Will he fulfill the true purpose of his returning to Algiers, or will his treasonous past overtake him? Does everything happily connect—or nothing?

About the Author