Let Life Intervene
After quite some time and a bit of wobbling, John had made a crucial decision: he was going to leave Madrid after more than 20 years abroad and go back to Stockholm. There were plenty of reasons for this monumental step: a divorce, no real job, and a daughter in New York; nothing kept him there anymore.
A fascinating rollercoaster voyage begins when he is hired as a private eye, searching for money launderers and tricksters, unravelling mysteries of gambling on the internet, travelling like a rover between Madrid, Hong Kong, Stockholm, London, and Paris, bumping into women, while discovering his father was a former spy at MI6.
As any man, John is a distilled version of many things: a sportsman, a father, an optimist, a man of reading who perhaps seems more intelligent than he actually is, but nonetheless a good asset, when there are new frontiers to explore, with a potential future in politics.
Amazed by life’s uncertainty, he believes if he had the guts to leave his country, he must have the courage to come back, let the wind take him and let life intervene. He is navigating the Asian, Swedish, and Spanish cultures first-hand.
A feel-good read. The hero whirls into a tour de force of travel and business intrigue peppered with worldwide romantic adventures.
Ralph G Hellman
A few years ago, I wanted to tell my story, my version of things so I wrote my memoirs, which gave rise to the idea of writing a novel. This ambition is now accomplished with this book and surprisingly a sequel is now in its finishing brushes. The intention is to write a trilogy. The struggle of writing is a fascinatingly spooky business, as Norman Mailer said, there are frustrating days without sparkling ideas in your head but you force yourself, you sit down in front of the computer and suddenly it appears and you think you have put together a splendid combination of words nobody had ever said so well or thought of and that that is happiness. Like whooshing down a cross-court forehand, wrong-footing your opponent or gliding down a snowy slope in splendid isolation and silence. As a reader, I dabble between deep intellectual stuff to the frivolous, books about history or contemporary novels. I was born in Stockholm, went to Madrid at the age of twenty-five to study Spanish a few months. One thing led to another and I found a job, got married, lived seven in years in Barcelona, found another job and went back to Madrid where I still live. My line of work was always in trading and commercialising different products, which has taken me hectically travelling all over Europe and China. A life of sports including official honorary posts, in particular tennis, ski and football, lately I have taken up golf. I love to go and visit Stockholm, feel the air, meet friends, taste the food and just be there and maybe, I’ll be back.
Austin Macauley Publishers
