Fishermen from Heaven

Fishermen from Heaven is an adventure yarn featuring two Icelander commercial fishermen, an American septuagenarian, and a Middle Eastern family on the run. Set in current times, it is the story of strangers thrown together in a raging North Atlantic storm. A diplomat, his expecting-any-minute wife, and their twelve and six year-old daughters are fleeing assassins contracted to kill them. The fishermen and the American do what they can to protect the family and themselves. Pressed into service as a midwife, the senior delivers the baby, and bonds with the youngest daughter cooking and singing at the fishing boat's tiny stove. The Icelander crewman is an Olympic class marksman with rifle and pistol, and he teams up with the captain and the old man to successfully bluff the killers the first time they board the fishing boat. The hired guns' second boarding is violent, as is their threat to the safety of the survivors after the vessel reaches Reykjavik. The early part of the novel traces the routes the characters take to meet. The Icelander captain visits a seaweed-growing recluse on his way to the islands north of Scotland for a last bit of R & R before starting an office job. The American senior unintentionally steals the show in an Oxford Union debate before venturing north to check out the same islands. The Middle Easterners' route is more circuitous. With a promise of help from a long-time consular corps associate and friend, they travel by van, plane, and train through North Africa, France, and Germany before embarking on an ill-fated cargo ship destined for Iceland.