Drinking from the Stream

Part action-adventure novel, part political thriller based on historical facts, Drinking from the Stream is set during 1971 and 1972, a time of violent upheaval when the Vietnam War and the Chinese Cultural Revolution marked a generation. The action leapfrogs from Louisiana to London, Paris, and Tanzania in a coming-of-age tale of international youth colliding with post-independence Africa.

Jake Ries, a twenty-two-year-old Nebraska farm boy turned oil roughneck, turns fugitive when he uninte...