The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

44 NOVEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL to Old Town,” a purgatory where dead humans go to recover from “modernosis,” a hubristic disease that causes modern individuals to think their technology makes them superior to those who came before them. The newly dead passengers travel through Old Town as they try to heal from the disease so they can enter heaven. En route the protagonist meets odd characters and moves through dreams as he attempts to make sense of his life on earth. During a nearly 30-year Foreign Service career, Philip Skotte served in Manila, the Vatican, Hong Kong, Budapest, Moscow, and Shanghai, in addition to Washington, D.C. He recently retired and, with his wife, Maribeth, moved to Long Island, New York, where he enjoys tending to the trees in area state and national parks in his spare time. Skotte has also penned 20Things to do After You Die (2020), Begat: Tales of Disappointment (2020), and Why Jesus Won’t Go Away: A Diplomat Reflects on Faith (2014). The King’s Corsair Ryan Peterson, independently published, 2022, $12.99/paperback, e-book available, 294 pages. James William Shaw, a decorated Brit- ish Royal Navy lieutenant, is given his most dangerous assignment yet. He must infiltrate the bloodthirsty crew of pirates led by the infamous Black Lion of the sea, Captain Charles Darrow. After scouring the seas of the Carib- bean and plundering commercial ships for years, Darrow and his vicious crew have amassed a secret fortune unlike anything seen in the New World. Shawmust find and join this crew in an undercover mission to find the secret treasure and, ultimately, eliminate the dastardly Captain Darrow. As a clandestine agent, Shaw will find his loyalties ruthlessly tested, friends and foes presenting themselves in unexpected moments, and he will struggle to stay true to himself while living a double life. Ryan Peterson, an American lawyer and diplomat, joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 2012 and currently serves as deputy consular chief in Phnom Penh. He has lived and worked in Ciudad Juarez, London, and Bucharest. He lives with his wife and two children in Cambodia. Conquistador (2018) was Ryan’s first novel; his second novel, Madrugada , was published in 2019. He also published The Brave Mice of Molgreen , a book for early readers, in 2022. Dirty Commodities: Tricked, Trapped and Terrified George Alfred Kennedy and Yvonne D. Merrill, SETAF Publishing, 2022, $20/paperback, e-book available, 276 pages. Retired Foreign Service Officer George Kennedy joins forces with writer Yvonne Merrill for their second joint novel, Dirty Commodities . Professor Angelica Suarez, an expert in human trafficking, is working at the U.S. embassy inMoldova, where she is trying to halt the flow of refugee women fromUkraine and other neighbor- ing countries who are at risk of being trafficked. Shortly after arriv- ing inMoldova, the professor is herself kidnapped by a Russian mafioso and drug kingpin, and she finds herself a victimof the very criminals she has spent her career working to stop. The story traces the professor’s journey fromMoldova to Central America as a prisoner of unknown criminals while the State Department, the FBI, and her university colleagues work together to try to track her down—giving an insider’s view of the ways various agencies and embassies work together in emergency situations. George Kennedy spent 35 years in the State Department, retiring as a Senior Foreign Service officer after assignments in seven countries, a stint as a deputy assistant secretary, and an assignment as senior adviser to Ronald Brown, the first African American Secretary of Commerce. Kennedy currently lives in Arizona. Confederacy of Fenians: A Novel James D. Nealon, Koehler Books, 2022, $19.95/paperback, e-book available, 320 pages. Confederacy of Fenians reimagines the Civil War in a surprising and pro- vocative way. Lee wins at Gettysburg, the British enter the war in support of the Confederacy, and the Fenian Brotherhood, a secret society of Irish revolutionaries based in New York, make a move to secure Irish independence after the war. Of the four main characters who play themselves, one, a leader of the Fenians, was the author’s real-life ancestor. The fictional character, Viola, a free Black woman fighting the Civil War in her own way, channels the author’s voice.