The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

42 OCTOBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL in El Salvador. Mr. Bracete retired from the Social Security Admin- istration in 2017 after having served for seven years as an attorney- adviser at various disability adjudication offices. The author hopes that this book will resonate with readers who may be trying to pick up the pieces of their own lives. Even though we all have regrets, he notes, there is always hope that the loneliness and solitude will end. Coconuts on Mars Indran Amirthanayagam, Poetrywala, 2019, $12/paperback, 64 pages. This whimsically titled volume is the poet’s 14th collection of verse to date. While it is slender in size, it peers bravely into the future even as it looks back to the rememberedmists of Indran Amirthanayagam’s Sri Lankan childhood. As was true of his previous verse, the poet once again embraces love inmany languages; crosses all sorts of borders—geographic, linguistic and political; and champions freedomof expression wherever he goes. Indran Amirthanayagam is a Sri Lankan American poet-diplo- mat, essayist and translator in English, Spanish, French, Portu- guese and Haitian Creole. He joined the U.S. Information Agency as a Foreign Service officer in 1993, serving in Buenos Aires and Brussels before joining the State Department as a public diplomacy officer in 1996. With State he has served in Abidjan, Mexico City, Chennai, Monterrey, Vancouver, Lima and Port-au-Prince, and is currently a member of the Freedomof Information Act team. Twomore of his books will be published later this year: Paolo 9 , a bilingual collection that describes the odyssey of Peruvian soccer star Paolo Guerrero before the recent World Cup, and En busca de posada , which addresses immigration and the search for a refuge. Black and Blue in Harlem: A Ross Agency Mystery Delia C. Pitts, FriesenPress, 2019, $16.99/hardcover, $7.99/paperback, 144 pages. Private investigator SJ Rook arrives home one day during a deadly cold night in Harlem to find his own apart- ment building is now a crime scene because his unassuming neighbor, Nomie George, took a 15-story plunge to her death. Might it be suicide, or might it be something else? Rook and his friend NYPD Detective Archie Lin look to find out and open a case. Rook’s leads keep going dry, and frustration starts to build. But then another gruesome death lands even closer to home. This time it’s a murder in the backyard of Rook’s own detective agency. The Ross Detective Agency is known for taking on those more personal cases where animosity boils and emotions run high. Might a brutal murderer be on the loose, or are things get- ting more personal? A stumbling romance, a prying roommate and a greedy gangster add to Rook’s problems. Will he sacrifice his own well- being to stop another death, or will he finally be overwhelmed by mounting personal troubles? Delia C. Pitts served for 11 years in the Foreign Service, with overseas postings to Nigeria, Mauritania and Mexico. She went on to spend 20 years as a university administrator. She and her husband live in central New Jersey and have twin adult sons. Alcestis in the Underworld: Poems Nina Murray, Circling Rivers, 2019, $14.99/paperback, 80 pages. Greek myths continue to captivate the modern imagination by offering fundamental truths about human nature. In this book of poems by Nina Murray, the myth of Alcestis’ journey to the underworld finds new salience. Murray navigates the shifting landscapes of 21st-century liv- ing, where the divide between poetry and prose blurs together and where foreign policy meets personal passion. This collection radiates lucid personal tribulations and captivates as well as it informs. The poetry also elucidates the author’s unique experi- ence—working in Moscow as an American diplomat after having grown up in Soviet-era Ukraine. Nina Murray is a Foreign Service officer, who has served in Lithuania, Canada and Russia. Her poetry has appeared in sev- eral journals, including Ekphrasis and The Harpoon Review . Her translations from Russian and Ukrainian include Peter Alesh- kovsky’s Stargorod (2013) and the award-winning The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (2012). She grew up in Lviv in Western Ukraine.