Not Heaven but Paradise

"Mewshaw's sentences sing. His ability to evoke a setting that many will find exotic rivals Graham Greene's, as does the depth of his characterization and his ability to make the reader keep wondering what in the world might happen next. The narrative keeps delivering surprises all the way to the final line. I love this novel. Steve Yarbrough, author Stay Gone Days The son of a Spanish mother and an American father who claimed to have worked for the CIA, Paul Stewart lives in his family home, a carmen in the Albaicn district of Granada. The house, which surrounds a lush courtyard, has foundations that date from Spains Islamic era and has been in the family for generations. Struggling to make ends meet, Paul has turned the carmen into an artists residency that caters primarily to American artists. The only current guests are Simone, a celebrity painter with a sexualized reputation, and an asylum-seeking Algerian professor who is the subject of a fatwa. Paul has been forced to take him in. An African refugee named Blessed, whos been displaced by the arrival of the professor, suffers a crisis of both body and faith as a result. The relationship between Simone and Paul begins to complicate matters, and suspicions about everybody abound. Murky pasts and private agendas collide with avowed intentionsincluding those of the U.S. governmentas events gather momentum toward an explosive, revelatory finish. In the hands of Michael Mewshaw, a master storyteller, this story fairly shines in our fraught age of political secrets and international terrorism.