The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

40 OCTOBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Black Forest H.K. Deeb, Kindle Direct Publications, 2019, $10.99/ paperback, $3.99/Kindle, 205 pages. Inspired by the paintings of Léon Spilliaert and the works of Patricia Highsmith, The Black Forest ushers in a plethora of secrets and riddles as mysterious as the characters examin- ing them. Barbara is a German police officer on an assignment well below her paygrade. Eben, a student from Kansas, exudes ideal- ism. Bill is an American professor with a checkered past. Their narratives come together in Freiburg, a German university town near the legendary Black Forest, where a local woman’s sudden disappearance suggests much more is at play. FSO Hadi K. Deeb is currently posted in Tashkent, and has served in Baku, Manila, Mexico City and Moscow. He spent two years in Freiburg prior to joining the State Department. The Black Forest is his third novel; he is also the author of A Banker’s Tale (2018) and The Haven (2017). Crown of Coral and Pearl Mara Rutherford, Inkyard Press, 2019, $18.99/hardcover, 384 pages. For generations, the princes of Ilara have married the most beautiful maid- ens from the ocean village of Varenia. But though every girl longs to be chosen as the next princess, the cost of becoming royalty is higher than any of them could ever imagine. Nor, this young adult novel’s intrepid heroine, once dreamed of seeing the wondrous wealth and beauty of Ilara, the kingdom that’s ruled her village for as long as anyone can remember. After a childhood accident leaves her with a permanent scar, however, that honor was set to go to her identical twin sister, Zadie—while Nor remained behind in Varenia, never to set foot on land. Then Zadie is gravely injured, and Nor is sent to Ilara in her place. To Nor’s dismay, her future husband, Prince Ceren, is forbidding and cold. As she grows closer to Ceren’s brother, the charming Prince Talin, Nor uncovers startling truths about a failing royal bloodline, a murdered queen and a plot to destroy the home she was once so eager to leave. Mara Rutherford began her writing career as a journalist but quickly discovered she far preferred fantasy to reality. Originally from California, she has lived all over the world alongside her Marine-turned-diplomat husband. Crown of Coral and Pearl is her first novel. Crosshairs George Kennedy, SETAF Publishing, 2018, $20/paperback, 393 pages. This gritty novel, set mainly dur- ing the second half of the George W. Bush administration, traces the historic rise of a little-known African American political strategist, Regi- nald Branson, to the White House. Narrated by Alfred Turner, a Senior Foreign Service officer who is Branson’s best friend, the story of the first black president’s rise to power is replete with fist-pumping highs and mind-numbing lows. There is a sense of magical realism about Branson’s total devotion to his wife, Josephine, and the power of their partnership to transform lofty and improbable dreams into reality. George Kennedy is a retired Senior Foreign Service offi- cer whose diplomatic career took him to seven countries and culminated in his appointment as consul general in Toronto. He has kept busy after retirement as a political adviser to several elected officials, an adviser to small- to medium-sized enter- prises regarding opportunities in overseas markets and an independent business owner. Kennedy’s previous book, the memoir Cotton Fields to Summits: The View from Contested Ground (SETAF Publishing, 2018), is featured on p. 36. Death in Delmarva Caroline Taylor, Black Rose Writing, 2019, $18.95/paperback, 219 pages. Daphne Dunn works as a lowly stock- room clerk in her cousin’s Foggy Bot- tom grocery store. She’s also required to play bill collector to customers who aren’t paying for their food, includ- ing pregnant Beatriz Cabeza de Vaca, who used to keep house for Daphne’s family in better times.