Is Richard Carter what he is because of what happened in Somalia or despite of it?































He may never know if it was something he did, or something that happened to him.

































How long must a man wait for confirmation of what he suspects? When is he justified in doing the unthinkable?

A Tale of Terror

Three people. Two former soldiers, each with a mission, each waging a campaign. At the center of their conflict is a vulnerable young woman, alone and far from home.

Richard Carter has come back to Cartier trying to pull his life together, while Jill Belbenoit has come to finish her degree. He has seen her on campus, but doesn’t know her. When a former squadmate from Somalia, Mic Boyd, turns up unexpectedly and assumes a friendship that never was, Richard allows himself to fall into what he hopes will be only a brief association. The last thing he wants is a reminder of his tour in the famine-racked squalor of Africa.

Mic inserts himself into Jill’s life as well as Richard’s. As attractive women must do, she has learned to deal with unwanted male attention. Unable to disengage from one man, however, she obligates herself to the other. Now she must navigate out of both relationships. Jill reproaches herself for both her naiveté and her manipulativeness. Soon she will have much greater concerns.

Memories, dreams, and flashbacks torment Richard as he tries to discover if what he fears is real, while Jill must decide if he is only a damaged soldier suffering from PTSD, or dangerously delusional and obsessed with her.

Is his nightmare vision the product of a fevered imagination tortured by his war experience and his guilt? Or does he see what no one else can? Is he averting a horror or perpetrating one?

Where does Jill’s real danger lie? Can she trust him? Is the “godforsaken pile of rocks” called Bonne Femme a refuge from peril—or from reality?