South of Paradise

A Novel

On the verge of a break-up with his wife, and a break-down at the office, super salesman, Christopher Miles is invited on a corporate trip to Tahiti by his business partner. Almost immediately events begin spinning out of control, sliding, at if by some unseen fate, into the bazaar and the surreal. The novel opens with a near-fatal car accident, which occurs after a meeting with the private detective that has been investigating his wifes infidelities. A few days later hes on route to the South Seas. Following a week of sleeplessness, tour mania, over-consumption of alcohol, jet-lag and the curse of a Voodoo tribesman hanging over his head, Christopher Miles disappears in the upper mountains of Moorea after becoming disoriented A post-modem love story turns into a psychedelic nightmare when he is abducted by a primitive cult of upper mountain tribesman, known as the Songmen, and is held by their chief as a captive. Back at the resort in Moorea. the tour guides and other members of the group, which totaled some sixty people, become hysterical Their trip to paradise is ruined when after days of searching, they cant locate him , their protocol demands they leave him behind. Months later, after being given up for dead by his business associates, and certain members of his family, Christopher Miles frees himself from captivity during a raging category five hurricane and begins his perilous descent back to reality, where on the verge of death he is transformed by a very unexpected ending.