AN UNCOMPROMISING TALE OF LOYALTY AND BETRAYAL THAT CHALLENGES OUR LONG-HELD BELIEFS ABOUT POWER AND TERRORISM.
Karla, a German terrorist, dreams of a free Palestine; Andrew Black, a renegade assassin, seeks order beyond disorder, and Jim Murphy an FBI agent is haunted by the memory of a daughter abandoned years earlier. After a hostage situation goes awry, Karla flees the scene with Murphy in pursuit. As the chase continues the three find themselves trapped in a world of shifting alliances, faceless informants and deceit. Torn between conflicting loyalties, each is drawn to a fateful rendezvous in Geneva.
A street hawker's cry pierced the air, the city alive now. The man bent down and unzipped the portfolio, letting the case flop open. He took up the surgical gloves and pulled them on, flexed his fingers and settled back in the chair.
Perspiration inched down his temples as he waited. A cockroach darted across the back of his hand. When it came to his wrist, the roach stopped, lifted its head as if to scent the air, then turned and wandered back down his hand. Down one finger, then the next. Cul-de-sacs.
The man didn't move.
An hour later when the Salvadorans' ancient Chevrolet coasted to the curb he stiffened as if awakened by a noise in the night. The man exhaled deliberately, the sound harsh at the back of his throat, then reached down and lifted the rifle from the case, his hands like porcelain in the early morning light, and eased the curtain sheer aside with the tip of the barrel.
Across the way sunlight glinted off the black paintwork of the Chevrolet. After a few moments three dark figures emerged. When the Salvadorans entered the bank, he rechecked everything, the angles and fields of fire, then lowered the rifle and propped it upright on his thigh.
"Dennis Medina's novel, The Madness of the Brave, is a wonderfully high strung telling of professional assassins and of a woman who is ducking their crosshairs, set in the post-Viet Nam and Palestinian era of tensions... there are shades of John le Carré with the twists in plot, the international settings, and the utter duplicity of several of its characters... Medina has a fine ear for his characters."--John Keeble, author of Broken Ground and The Shadows of Owls
"In the world of international intrigue Dennis Medina proves once again that the most compelling espionage thrillers aren't necessarily about super spies. He crafts a thought-provoking story with vivid characters whose lives as cool operatives are complicated by deep stirrings of the human heart."--Joanne Meschery, author of Home and Away
"Dennis Medina has created an addictive, skillfully composed thriller about passion and power. A masterful blend of history and fiction. Uniquely plotted and filled with finely wrought, dedicated yet disturbing characters."--K. Bartholomew, author of We didn't know any better: Poems. About life
"Dennis Medina's novel follows Karla, a German woman abandoned as a child by her GI father, as she navigates the insular world of 1970s political terrorism...Through Medina's finally focused, tactile writing we experience the moment the trigger is pulled, the harshness of a comrade's death and the taste of betrayal. A brilliant work by a fine emerging writer."--Raymond Hutson, author of Topeka, ma'shuge and Finding Sgt. Kent
