The Lavender Man

In 1990 at the height of the Trujillo massacres, war correspondent Sebastian Smith flees Colombia with an unbearable secret – no longer the silent witness, he is an accessory to murder. Recovering from the recent expulsion of the equally bloody Khmer Rouge, Phnom Penh is the prefect place for Smith to hide. ‘Adopted’ by Sokun, a resourceful survivor of the Khmer Rouge, Smith becomes reluctant party to the illicit trading of cultural artefacts, and when Sokun ruthlessly disposes of the feared Punleu, Smith finds that an ammunition dump has been added to his unwanted business interests. Sokun declares himself to be Smith’s ‘man.’ Carelessly amused by Sokun’s devotion and only mildly perturbed by the vengfulness he sees occasionally displayed, Smith lives with Secuntia. The sole survivor of her family from the Killing Fields, Secuntia loves Smith but he returns her only a careless affection. Sokun though, is increasingly tormented by his own frustrated desire for her, and gradually, his loyalty to Smith becomes increasingly conflicted. In the course of their business, Smith encounters a beautiful, Italian musician. Danielle Casati is the wife of an art collector and businessman, captivated, and intent on her seduction, Smith beguiles with a vision of lavender farming in Provence, that unexpectedly assumes a compelling purpose and the means to escape his purposeless existence. However, when he confesses his dark secret, she instantly rejects him. Despairing, Smith is readily persuaded into a bizarre hunting expedition into the jungles of Cambodia’s Ratanakiri by the German, Winkler. Their helicopter crashes and though badly injured, Smith’s life is saved by a family of Kreung, whose own existence is threatened by Vietnamese loggers. In the many months he is cared for by the Kreung, he comes to love the simplicity and purity of their lives and would remain with them, but missionaries persuade them that they must abandon Smith, and they return him to Phnom Penh. Smith resolves to help the Kreung, but instead, he is expelled from Cambodia by corrupt officials. For Sokun, it is his opportunity to abduct Secuntia to the house he has built especially for her. Now Smith sees just one path. He must find Danielle Casati and become the lavender man he’d envisioned; and in the mountains near Digne in Provence he finds the perfect farm. Meanwhile, with the encouragement of Father Fabrini, Danielle travels to Provence to meet with Smith again, but before she can find him, Smith receives a summons from his former business associate, police lieutenant So Phat, urging him to come to Secuntia’s aid. Unaware that So Phat has long since departed Cambodia, instead, Smith finds he has been lured to a deadly confrontation with a Sokun, now consumed by the need for revenge. 'The Lavender Man' is the story of a man whose frailty has been exposed by his prolonged exposure to the horror of war but who finds a way, in the jungles of Cambodia, to find another, better way. It is a story of ambition, descent and redemption, and love, set in Colombia, Cambodia, Italy and Provence.