The Red of His Shadow

Book excerpt: It is Holy Week, and the Haitian sugar cane harvesters can temporarily forget their misery and lose themselves in the fervor of Voudon. But amidst the colorful festival, a struggle for power, as well as a devastating passion, develops between Mistress Zulé, a Voudon priestess and spiritual leader, and the infamous, bloodthirsty Similá Bolosse, a rival Voudon priest backed by the tontons macoutes. Based on true events, The Red of His Shadow evokes ferocious love, intense hatred, and the specter of death looming within life. Written in a prose remarkable for its clarity and musicality, the novel manages to be both richly symbolic and intensely physical. Behind a case that Dominican police closed as a simple crime of passion pulses the spell of a war that remains unfinished today.