Haleh was born in Iran to an Austrian mother. She moved to the USA to teach with her husband and got American citizenship, but returns to Iran frequently to take care of her elderly mom. At the end of her most recent visit, she says good bye to her mom and heads off to the airport when her taxi is run off the road and she is robbed. The robbers take both Haleh's Iranian and American passport plus all of her belongings but don't touch anything of the taxi driver's. As Haleh determines what is required to get new passports re-printed, she soon learns that's the least of her worries. The Intelligence Ministry has decided that Heleh is trying to organize a revolution in Iran and interrogate her. Nothing she says can deter them from these thoughts.
Weeks turn in to months as Heleh answers these questions. The academic work she has done in the USA is very suspicious to the Ministry. They keep asking her the same questions over and over. Heleh has a few contacts that try to help her and she finds out that two factions within the government are in disagreement about her. One wants to let her go, one thinks she's hiding information. The latter wins and Heleh is put in solitary confinement in jail. Her husband, back in the USA, launches a full-fledged media offensive. If the information Heleh is providing isn't enough to get her released, the perhaps pressure from other influential people will.
As Heleh explains what happens to her, some background on Iran's history also needs to be provided to explain how the country got to the point where it's accusing dual citizens of revolution. While this information is helpful and necessary to paint the picture, Heleh provided way too much of it. There was about 35 pages at the beginning of the book describing Heleh's past and Iran's past. It was pretty dry and I found myself skimming.
What happened to Heleh, how she overcame it, and the impact to her family is the meat of this story. It's a shocking story about how an innocent grandmother can be treated.
First Line: "The early hours of December 30, 2006, began for me like any day when I would depart Tehran for the United States."
Rating:
(3.5/5)
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Book 5 in the series has Claire and Jamie making a life as grandparents in North America. Roger and Brianna are trying to get married, as is Jaime's aunt. They also know the war is coming and are wondering what to do about it or whether it's possible to avoid. Stephen Bonnet is still around, somewhere, and Jaime is trying to track him down and bring him to justice.
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Isaac Swift is a mathematics professor that has come up with no meaningful proofs during his tenure. He's feeling lost. His girlfriend tries to lure him away from constant sessions of math but eventually gives up and leaves him. Isaac is depressed, which sinks him further in to long sessions of math in the middle of the night. Issac finds inspiration in an unlikely source and thinks he has come up with a solution for the wild numbers. He is quickly accused of plagiarism but he doesn't think it's true.
Pregnant with her first child, Eve goes down memory lane remembering her single mother and losing her at a young age. Eve went to live with her grandparents in Whales after this tragedy on farm land.
Detective Hercule Poirot winds up on the Orient Express as he tries to get back home to assist with an investigation. His friend has procured him a ticket as he owns part of the train line. The train stops in the middle of the night due to a snow storm and by the morning, one of the passengers is dead. Poirot must interview all of the passengers in his car and determine who committed this murder.
Notting Hill's private gardens are a sanctuary for those that live surrounding them, until one night the body of a local young woman is found dead in them. The girl is identified as Reagan Keating, nanny to a male young upcoming dancer. Detective Gemma Jones is included on the case as she is a friend of a friend of the victim's employer and knows some of the parties involved. Her and DI Kerry Boatman start to investigate.
