: : timeless design through memorable stories, graphics, photographs and decor

By Kent Harrington
Published by Diversion Books

Straight out of medical school, Dr. Collin Reeves had forgone the “American Dream”—approach to the practice of medicine, wherein freshly-minted M.D.s usually proceed on to graduate studies in Country-Club-ology and Trophy-Wife Hunting. He had rejected that gold-plated easy life, enrolling instead in the famous London School of Tropical Diseases and, having completed his studies there, had gone straight out into the trenches of the Third World, fighting the Good Fight against the legion of parasites that bedevil the world’s poor. He began to make a difference.

His level of youthful energy and commitment, plus the fact that he seemed to have no problem “going native,” brought him to the attention of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and given his idealistic nature and proven capabilities, it was no surprise when he said “yes” to their recruitment after the horrific events of 9/11/2001.

But the CIA, instead of sending him to the front lines of Afghanistan, had posted him to a Kuwait emir’s desert palace, where his job consisted of checking the health of a seemingly unending string of ten-age Russian prostitutes.

Then they transferred him to Mexico City. His cover: “On-call” doctor for sick American tourists. Disheartened, he took up painting on his days off, and his bosses didn’t seem to mind his absence from the War On Terror. That is, until a rumor reached the Head of Station that something very nasty had apparently been taken off a ship of Middle-Eastern origin and was now somewhere on the Mexican mainland. The makings of a “dirty bomb?” Something even worse? The next thing he knew, Dr. Reeves was being ordered to keep a prisoner alive who was being tortured for information about the supposed incident. But there was worse to come. Much worse. It started when a neighboring Muslim hotel-manager friend asked him to look in on a beautiful young “tourist girl” who was staying at his hotel. When Dr. Collin Reeves crossed the threshold of her sickroom, he also passed through the gate leaving to the chambers of the human heart as Frida Kahlo might have painted them. From then on, his fate and that of the beautiful green-eyed “tourist girl” were entwined forever. From that moment on, too, Dr. Collin Reeves found himself at war with his own conscience, the CIA, and his desire to be loved by the beautiful young girl with the green eyes…

You can purchase the book online from Smashwords in multiple eBook formats at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/74545.

eBook formatting by Shelley Glasow Schadowsky.