A Promise to Die for

You don't ignore a man's dying wish.

Retired diplomat Sam Hough boards a transatlantic flight to Paris after making a seemingly innocent promise to find the five-year-old son of a dying friend, a son the friend has never known.

With only the thinnest of clues, Sam quickly realizes that those who agree to help him soon disappear, those who don't disappear refuse to help him, and still others want to kill him rather than help find the boy. Clearly there are things his friend neglected to tell him. But what did he leave out--and why?

Sam's search through the narrow streets of the great city's seamiest neighborhoods leads him into a maze of suspicion, betrayal, and growing danger--and to the rekindling of a long-lost romance.

In its shadows, the city of light holds deadly secrets. Sam must race to resolve his mysterious quest before his promise turns into an epitaph.

For readers who enjoy thrillers by Graham Greene, John le Carr?, and Jack Slater.

Stephen Holgate has led a remarkably varied life. Besides serving as a diplomat in American embassies overseas, he has worked as a congressional staffer; acted with the national tour of an improvisational theater group; worked as a crew member of a barge on the canals of France; and lived in a tent while working as a gardener in Malibu.

His novel Tangier received the Silver Medal in Fiction from the Independent Publishers group and made Bookreaders ten-best list in the Indie Mystery/Suspense category. Madagascar met with similar critical success, receiving a coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly as well as another listing from Bookreaders among the ten best Mystery/Suspense novels of the year. Holgate lives with his wife, Felicia, in Portland, Oregon.