Messenger from Mystery: A Novel

by Deno Trakas, Elizabeth Cox (Foreword by)

Overview

A young academic becomes embroiled in the Iranian hostage crisis in this historical novel of romance, geopolitics, and clashing cultures.

It’s 1979 and Jason “Jay” Nichols is just making the transition from student to teacher when he faces a nearly impossible challenge. While teaching a group of students from Iran, more than fifty Americans are taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. As the situation holds all of America spellbound, one of Jay’s students, the enchanting Azadeh “Azi” Ghotbzadeh, is suddenly in danger.

A cousin of Iran’s foreign minister, Azi finds herself in an increasingly hostile country. Even as she and Jay fall in love, she is beckoned home to safety by her family. But when the U.S. government learns of Jay’s relationship with someone in the Ayatollah’s orbit, he becomes involved in a mission that could avert a global catastrophe or put Azi in mortal peril.

Messenger from Mystery vividly depicts the human heart in conflict with itself while offering a thoughtful critique of U.S.–Middle East relations while also vividly depicting the human heart in conflict with itself.

Foreword by Robert Penn Warren Award–winning author Elizabeth Cox

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611177343
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	11/12/2021
Series:	Story River Books
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Deno Trakas is the Laura and Winston Hoy Professor of English and director of the writing center at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He has published fiction and poetry in journals and anthologies, two chapbooks of poems, and a memoir entitled Because Memory Isn't Eternal: A Story of Greeks in Upstate South Carolina. Trakas is a five-time winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project Prize and a recipient of the South Carolina Academy of Authors Fellowship in Fiction. Messenger from Mystery is his first novel.

What People are Saying About This

Bret Lott

Messenger from Mystery couldn't be more timely in our age of terrorism, both domestic and foreign. This riveting and thoughtful book is equal parts love story, history lesson, and international spy thriller—and the whole of it provided me with a story I couldn't put down. Thank you, Deno Trakas, for such a fine novel!

Sterling Watson

Messenger from Mystery is a taut page-turner about love and death on the dark side of international education. The forbidden affair of an American professor and his sultry Iranian student, the Hitchcockian suspense of men and women on the run for their lives in the world's most dangerous places, and a cast of supporting players that throbs with life—Deno Trakas delivers all of these in words that sing. A remarkably accomplished debut novel and surely one that Hollywood will hurry to capture.

James M. Scott

Set against the backdrop of South Carolina and Iran, Messenger from Mystery is equal parts coming of age tale, love story, and international thriller. Deno Trakas has crafted a power narrative, one that is incredibly relevant in today's world.

Ron Rash

In Messenger from Mystery, Deno Trakas seamlessly fuses the personal to the political, and the result is a story that probes the possibility of individual goodness surviving despite two countries' discord. This novel is an outstanding debut by a very talented writer.

Editorial Reviews

Trakas shows a talent for enlarging his focus and sustaining the keen interest of his readers in a richly honed cast of characters and a complex narrative unfolding against an historical event: the capture of Americans as Iranian hostages in the 1980s. A clash of cultures, the pull and push of personal relationships, and rising senses of duty and forgiveness create the driving force of this novel, but at its beautiful beating heart, this is a profound love story

Elizabeth Cox

"In Messenger from Mystery, Deno Trakas has created an expertly researched time capsule of a very specific time in our country's history; he has also created a love story, universal in its ability to bridge time and place and culture."--Jill McCorkle, author of Life after Life


"Messenger from Mystery couldn't be more timely in our age of terrorism, both domestic and foreign. This riveting and thoughtful book is equal parts love story, history lesson, and international spy thriller--and the whole of it provided me with a story I couldn't put down. Thank you, Deno Trakas, for such a fine novel!"--Bret Lott, College of Charleston


"In Messenger from Mystery, Deno Trakas seamlessly fuses the personal to the political, and the result is a story that probes the possibility of individual goodness surviving despite two countries' discord. This novel is an outstanding debut by a very talented writer."--Ron Rash, author of Above the Waterfall


"Messenger from Mystery is a taut page-turner about love and death on the dark side of international education. The forbidden affair of an American professor and his sultry Iranian student, the Hitchcockian suspense of men and women on the run for their lives in the world's most dangerous places, and a cast of supporting players that throbs with life--Deno Trakas delivers all of these in words that sing. A remarkably accomplished debut novel and surely one that Hollywood will hurry to capture."--Sterling Watson, author of Suitcase City and Fighting in the Shade


"Set against the backdrop of South Carolina and Iran, Messenger from Mystery is equal parts coming of age tale, love story, and international thriller. Deno Trakas has crafted a power narrative, one that is incredibly relevant in today's world."--James M. Scott, Pulitzer Prize finalist for Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor

From the Publisher