Face of Darkness

Author Harbhajan Singh Sandhu is back with another powerful novel, "Face of Darkness." Revisiting the immigration theme in his earlier work, "Wayward Brahmin," he explores the grand Eurasian underground route between India and England, while taking readers on a journey of a lifetime through the full-bodied escapades and poignant homeland remembrances of one young Paul Dev. With the call of a brighter future in his heart and the blessing of his tradition-bound village family, Dev embraces his adventure--from the sublime to the sensual--as a door to the exotic West is thrown open. The strain of his journey as an illegal immigrant is eased by fond remembrances of colorful tales of village life, a series of lusty liaisons from Lahore to Coventry, as well as the vast beauty of the strange new lands he encounters. In sharp contrast are his blunt recollections of the stunning violence of India's infamous Partition, the pitilessness of the Hindu Caste system, and the terrors of communal strife. In order to ride the tiger of his changing world, Dev, reflective by nature, is forced to grow fast. It is, however, the hold of his Indian beliefs that sustains him during his greatest test when smugglers set him adrift in a sealed cask in the icy waters of the English Channel. In some of the most luminous writing on the question of man's mortality, Sandhu applies an unblinking eye to our inevitable dance with Death, herein, Lord Yama. Dev survives this harrowing event by ultimately accepting his fate with grace, and the inevitable release of The Self from one's mortal frame that follows. In a poignant expression of Sandhu's taste for life's ultimate irony, Dev later dies at the cruel hand of racial bigotry--but only after he so brilliantly runs the gauntlet of his karmic destiny. Brilliantly engaging in countless ways, this book is an exceptional read.