Racing With The Rain: A Novel

Racing With The Rain: a phenomenon witnessed in the tropics. A fast moving rain cloud in an otherwise clear sky triggers a sudden downpour and people run helter-skelter for cover. Is it possible to outrun the rain? Can one ever really escape the past and avoid the inevitable?

It is 1980: Guyanese born and Canadian naturalized CARL DIAS' life is unravelling. Due to differences built up over many years, he has split with Russian born NATASHA. He lives on his own in an apartment in Toronto but is experiencing regret about the separation and is wondering where his life is headed. And now comes news that his father, AUGUSTO has died in Guyana.

Conflict seems to have marked CARL'S early life. Back in colonial British Guiana, he was an active member of REFORM, the left-wing ruling party. This inevitably led to a clash with AUGUSTO, a successful businessman and member of the business elite, a man with political ambitions in the CONSERVATIVE party. AUGUSTO has come from a long line of Portuguese entrepeneurs and is fiercely opposed to independence for the country under Reform. Adding to the conflict between father and son, CARL had taken a scholarship to CUBA under the auspices of the Reform party.

Carl makes contact to find out who of his siblings will return with him for their father's funeral. His oldest brother JOSEPH, now living in the UK, is dead set against it-his wife and daughter were killed in the racial disturbances at Wismar in 1964. Brother THOMAS, now living in Florida, suffered severe burns in a bomb blast as he was about to go to the U.S for training in destabilizing the government. None of the brothers knows the whereabouts of JOHN, the youngest of the Dias siblings. CARL is going to be the sole representative at his father's funeral.

On his return to Guyana, Carl is interrogated by Special Branch. They're looking for people who are connected to the RDG, a right-wing North American based group of expat Guyanese aiming to free their homeland from the President who, aided by a history of fraudelent elections, has been in power since independence in 1966. Carl denies being associated with the group but fails to disclose that his name is actually on the membership list, and that he'd been questioned by the RCMP. One of the members of Special Branch is WINSLOW, Carl's childhood friend who has connections to the dreaded X-13 group that ran a terror campaign. It is with all of this hanging over his head that Carl is released to attend his father's funeral.

It's been sixteen years since Carl left the country and his return reignites memories of a period in which the political and social fabric of the colony collapsed into conflict and instability. This happened as the two main political parties REFORM and REPUBLICAN vied for power and the right to lead the country to independence. In the background, was the Kennedy administration applying pressure on the British government to engineer Reform out of office, and the CIA infiltrating the country's labour movement to create a climate of fear and uncertainty. It was during this period that Carl witnessed the death of brother JAMES and saw the virtual destruction of the commercial district of the Capital due to arson and riots.

Carl's past catches up with him when Special Branch discovers his tenuous links to the group planning the revolution. And they come looking for him after his father's funeral. Carl has to go underground and plan an exit through a Backtracking system that many Guyanese have resorted to in order to flee the country. But, before he is able to make his exit, he is picked up by Winslow and taken to an undisclosed location where he is subjected to a rigorous interrogation to determine his connection to the RDG. Carl fears that he will never be allowed to return to Canada to be reconciled with Natasha and his two children.

In the end, help comes from an unexpected source...