“Now I feel I know nothing,
have never known anything.”
A tale of danger, mystery, betrayal, and redemption, “Tangier” presents the remarkable journey of a father and his son told in parallel stories set fifty years apart: one a mystery; the other a tale of espionage. In the first story, Christopher Chaffee, a disgraced Washington power-broker, travels down the narrow lanes and twisted souls of Tangier’s ancient medina in search of the father he has never known, a French diplomat, who died in a Vichy prison in 1944 – or so he had always believed. In the second story, his father, Rene Laurent, fights to maintain his soul—and his life—in the snake pit of wartime Tangier. These two stories slowly intertwine as Chaffee unwraps the mystery of his father’s fate, and Laurent gets caught up in the intrigue of opposing espionage webs—and caught up, too, in the arms of a woman he knows he shouldn’t trust.
“Stephen Holgate weaves an exquisite tapestry of wartime espionage, intrigue, and mystery, in his astounding debut novel. The only things missing are Bogart romancing Bergman, and Dooley Wilson (“Sam”) singing ‘As Time Goes By’. With a novel-length flashback to 1940s French-occupied Morocco, Tangier is the real Casablanca... Tangier is one of the most satisfying debut novels I’ve enjoyed in decades.”
“Gripping and persuasive, with shades of both Graham Greene and Alan Furst...A really terrific read.”
“Writing that lets the story tell itself. Holgate weaves a tight web across a span of more than fifty years. A yarn beautifully spun. Forget sleep, turn the pages.”
“I have admired the writing of Steve Holgate for as long as I can remember, and count him as a fundamental influence on my own sensibility as a comedy writer. His brilliant, original, and frequently hilarious literary voice is on display everywhere in “Tangier,” which has earned its place on my bookshelf amongst the best works of modern American fiction.”
“His novel...is fascinating...The stages of this journey are carefully crafted and speak volumes about the real effects of political war. Interesting historical fiction!”
“Descriptions leap so vividly off the page that the city itself becomes a character in the drama.”
