Djibouti: A Novel
SynopsisPlot
Dara Barr, documentary filmmaker, is at the top of her game. She’s covered Bosnian women, Neo-Nazis, and post-Katrina New Orleans (for which she won an Oscar), but now she’s looking for an even bigger challenge. So she and her right-hand-man-a six-foot-six, 72-year-old, African-American man named Xavier-head to Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, to tackle modern-day pirates. Once they start filming, though, they find a whole lot more than they bargained for. They quickly learn that almost nobody in Djibouti is what he seems. A whole mob of colorful characters patrols the surrounding seas, including a pirate commander who’s more like Robin Hood than Captain Hook; a cultured diplomat with dubious connections; a rich playboy who knows more than he lets on; and an American-born terrorist with lofty ambitions. But then there’s the recently hijacked LNG (liquid natural gas) tanker: just the thing an aspiring terrorist is looking for to blow up something big. What Dara and Xavier don’t know, though, is who’s going to be the one to get the prize and what they’re going to do for it.
Story
About this book
Dara Barr is a documentary filmmaker with an Oscar for her work on post-Katrina New Orleans. Looking for a new subject, she travels to Djibouti, the small nation on the Horn of Africa, with her collaborator Xavier, a 72-year-old, six-foot-six former seafarer. Their goal is to film modern-day pirates operating in the waters off the coast. What they find is a layered scene of competing interests, where few people turn out to be what they first appear.
Among the figures they encounter are a pirate commander with a reputation for generosity, a diplomat whose connections raise questions, a wealthy playboy holding back information, and an American-born man with plans that go well beyond piracy. The stakes sharpen when a hijacked tanker carrying liquid natural gas enters the picture, attracting attention from several parties at once. Dara and Xavier find themselves caught between factions whose motives overlap and collide in ways their camera cannot easily sort out.
Elmore Leonard sets the novel in a part of the world where international shipping lanes, regional politics, and criminal enterprise converge in a narrow stretch of sea. The story carries his characteristic mix of sharp dialogue, eccentric characters, and shifting alliances.
