The Tears of Dark Water

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Daniel and Vanessa Parker are an American success story. He is a Washington, D.C. power broker, and she is a doctor with a thriving practice. But behind the façade, their marriage is a shambles, and their teenage son, Quentin, is self-destructing. In desperation, Daniel dusts off a long-delayed dream - a sailing trip around the world. Little does he know that the voyage he hopes will save them may destroy them instead.

Half a world away, on the lawless coast of Somalia, Ismail Ibrahim is plotting the rescue of his sister, Yasmin, from the man who murdered their father. Driven to crime by love and loyalty, he hijacks ships for ransom money. There is nothing he will not do to save her, even if it means taking innocent life.

Paul Derrick is the FBI's top hostage negotiator. His twin sister Megan, is a celebrated defense attorney. When Paul is called to respond to a hostage crisis at sea, he has no idea how far it will take them both into their traumatic past - or the chance it will give them to redeem the future.

Across continents and oceans, through storms and civil wars, their paths converge in a single, explosive moment. It is a moment that will test them, and break them, but that will also leave behind a glimmer of hope: that out of the ashes of tragedy the seeds of justice and reconciliation can grow, not only for themselves but also for Somalia itself.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Early in this timely and harrowing thriller from Addison (The Garden of Burning Sand), lawyer Daniel Parker and his troubled piano-playing teenage son, Quentin, are sailing their way toward a better relationship when pirates board their boat in the Indian Ocean. Enter Paul Derrick, a love-starved FBI hostage negotiator, and his twin sister, Megan, a hot-shot attorney. Ismail Ibrahim, the pirates' second-in-command, wants money to free his kidnapped sister, Yasmin, but he's a morally questionable character who's hard to care about. Daniel's violinist wife, Vanessa, and his father, a Washington insider, add emotional complications. Although the details won't be revealed for hundreds of pages, the basic structure of what will happen is clear from the get-go. Very little is what it seems, thanks to double crosses, agency jurisdictional disputes, and passages describing the blood-soaked history of Somalia. Fortunately, the soul-healing power of music lightens the story. Agent: Dan Raines, Creative Trust Inc. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

When six characters have their lives changed forever by an act of piracy, they must decide who is to blameand what can be forgiven. Daniel and Vanessa Parker are a wealthy, successful couple who have drifted apart. When their only son, Quentin, gets into some trouble at school, father and son undertake an epic sailing trip in the Pacific Ocean, leaving their flawed lives back in Annapolis. Their idyll is spoiled when their sailboat is overtaken by seven Somali pirates, led by the intelligent but desperate Ismail, who will do anything to secure his younger sister's rescue from the clutches of her extremist husband. The government's top hostage negotiator, Paul Derrick, is brought in to work against the pirates' increasing agitation with an aggressive U.S. militaryand with each other. Addison (The Garden of Burning Sand, 2014, etc.) juggles six different perspectives in this suspenseful, sprawling story and moves back and forth between Africa and America to cover the kidnapping, negotiations, and subsequent trial. As with his previous two novels, Addison's attention is focused squarely on the larger message behind the story and on instructing the reader about Somali culture in order to humanize those who are brought low by the war and terror of its recent history. This novel's push to teach readers a lesson is perhaps overly evident throughout; at one point Derrick says, "He may be an enemy. But that doesn't make him less of a human being." This can result in Addison's stretching his readers' belief for the sake of creating sympathetic characters, especially in the novel's courtroom climax. And while these characters, especially the Americans, all feel slightly interchangeablethey are all well-educated and gifted musicians who drink fancy wine and drive fancy carsthe conclusions they reach about the importance of forgiveness and the need for cross-cultural understanding could not be more timely. A fast-paced thriller that puts its humanitarian moral at the forefront. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.