Call it the drama of the prodigal son in reverse. While Maulus Shane uses his wealth to indulge his fancies, he abandons his son, Johan, to uncertain fate at the young age of twelve.
Some years later the aged and ailing father sets out in pursuit of his now prosperous son as his only source of redemption. The puzzle is, how does their meeting bridge the gulf between them? Will Johan's quest for an answer to the unsolved murder of his beloved mother years ago, for which his father possibly holds the clue, affect their rendezvous? Or will father and son mend bridges through their mutual needs?
In a snapshot of lives intermingled by twists and turns, the resolution unravels secrets that turn topsy-turvy the persona of the characters.
Genre: FICTION / SuspenseAbout 100 copies ordered by the author, and sold to friends and family. Expected higher sales with more marketing effort.
He was painfully aware that he was dying. As he emerged from the doctor’s consulting room he had the referral letter in as secure a grasp as his feeble hand could command. The note was all the hope he nurtured for healing at the state specialist hospital in the capital city.
“You must visit that hospital without delay,” the physician at the village clinic had told him. “You have very little time.” There was hardly a tone of optimism in his warning.
When he boarded the car that was to take him to the city, one question was uppermost in his thoughts. How would his long forgotten son react upon his arrival? Would he forgive and forget? There was no way of telling. But what he knew for certain was that the consumptive disease lurking beneath his chest was fast eating him up. And the son he had ignored for so many years was his only hope for footing his medical bills at the hospital in the city. At the end station, he hauled himself out of the bus on numbed legs. He was unsettled by the unfamiliar surroundings. The hustle and bustle of the mass of humanity like a beehive at peak season were altogether alien to him. People shouting in multiple dialects made the scenery look like a re-enactment of the drama of the Tower of Babel. The blare of the horns of many cars maneuvering for parking space commingled in a bedlam of an erratic orchestra. Music booming from giant jukeboxes assaulted his ears like a hammer to the anvil. More buses arrived, discharging passengers like sinking ships jettisoning cargo into troubled seas. That added to his confusion.
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Portuguese
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Already translated.
Translated by Stefanie Carvalho
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Author review: Exceptionally fast work done. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Cristina López
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