by Ward Just
First published 2006
Thomas Railles has built a quiet life in southern France. Once he worked part-time for the CIA, but now he paints and lives peacefully with his wife Florette. That tranquil existence shatters when unknown attackers murder Florette. Railles struggles to understand who killed the woman he loved and why. The investigation reveals that four Moroccan terrorists face charges for her death. The former spy must confront a loss that transforms everything he thought he knew about safety and belonging. Ward Just explores how violence can reach across borders to destroy the lives people work so hard to build. This is a story about a man forced to reckon with grief while the past he thought he had left behind resurfaces in the most devastating way.
Genres: fiction, crime, contemporary, mystery-thriller
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, loss, past-resurfaces
Setting: France, Morocco
Period: 20th-century
258 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Content warnings: death, violence