Publisher's Synopsis
In The Tears of Dark Water, the internationally bestselling author of A Walk Across the Sun and The Garden of Burning Sand delivers an electrifying, moving novel of tragedy, vengeance and redemption set against the backdrop of a pressing contemporary political issue.
When Somali pirates hijack an American sailing yacht in the Indian Ocean, a tense standoff orchestrated by top U.S. hostage negotiator Paul Derrick ends in tragedy: Skipper Daniel Parker is shot dead and his troubled son Quentin is critically wounded. The pirates are captured and extradited to stand trial in the USA.
A young pirate named Ismail is identified by his cohorts as the shooter. In questioning him, Derrick begins to suspect there is more to his story than a zealot driven by simple, bloodthirsty anti-American extremism. But Ismail says little, fearing the truth will endanger the only person he has left in the world: His sister Yasmin.
Yasmin is the youngest (and favorite) wife of a radical Islamist leader named Najiib. But Najiib also thinks she shares the rebellious spirit of her brother Ismail-who escaped soon after the siblings were kidnapped from their Mogadishu schoolhouse by Najiib's men. As his mistrust grows, Yasmin begins to plan her own escape.
Derrick's sister Megan, a criminal defense lawyer, takes Ismail's case. Sharing her brother's sense that there is a mystery to unravel, she begins an investigation that traces Ismail's journey from Mogadishu to a Kenyan refugee camp to the large Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, Quentin Parker's sister Vanessa is picking up the pieces of her life. As her brother recovers, she re-reads emotional letters he sent her from ports on the voyage he had been on with their father. Lifting her spirits are the prospect of justice and her increasingly close relationship with Paul Derrick.
As the tension mounts, Ismail strikes a shocking deal with the U.S. Government that offers him a chance to save Yasmin's future. But he must put everything on the line to deliver Najiib to American authorities and also betray the other pirates and tell the truth about the attack.
In his best novel yet, Corban Addison brings together the compassionate storytelling, deep knowledge and masterful orchestration of plot and suspense that make him a young writer to watch closely.
