THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 39 Desperate to avert disaster, the United States dispatches H. McFadden Hightower as its special envoy. His mission: prevent mass atrocities at all costs. But Hightower’s intervention sparks tension with Phil Bardo, a seasoned diplomat stationed in Kitega, who believes Hightower’s heavy-handed tactics risk worsening the conflict. Their ideological clash opens the door for manipulative Kitegan factions to exploit the chaos for their own ends. As violence spirals out of control, the question becomes not just who will prevail but at what cost—and whether doing the right thing will save lives or destroy them. Gordon Duguid is a retired FSO who served with USIA and the State Department from 1990 to 2020 in Washington, D.C., the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Burundi, NATO, India, the Organization of American States, Serbia, and the National Intelligence University. Counter Narrative is his first novel. Pigeon Falls Jeff Elzinga, Water’s Edge Press, 2025, $24.00/paperback, e-book available, 278 pages. Pigeon Falls follows surveyor Tom Bishop and his small band of coworkers, a traveling crew of wind turbine builders, to an out-of-the-way corner of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area for one final project of the season before winter arrives. Soon, however, unforeseen challenges test the crew’s character and threaten to pry the team apart. Caught up in the ordeals are a pig farmer hell-bent on reversing generations of family failure and a young newlywed with an abusive husband. Tom Bishop must also face his own health issues as he considers what legacy a childless, divorced man can hope to leave behind. (Continued on page 42)
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