The Foreign Aide

Beirut, 1975.  New arrivals in the city, British couple Richard and Claire Devine, fall under the spell of charismatic American journalist Lawrence Anderson and his captivating Palestinian girlfriend, Monique.

In those thrilling early days, even the outbreak of factional violence across the city feels exhilarating. The world is watching—but the four friends remain safe, expatriate observers of somebody else’s war.

But as the fighting intensifies, so do their relationships and desires—until one of them feels betrayed.

In a moment their safety is shattered, their alliance broken.

And they discover that in civil war, there are no civilians.

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The Foreign Aide is a psychological novel about the impact of war on those who believe themselves to be outside it. Although the story is fiction, the setting is real. I arrived in Beirut in 1975 at the same moment as my characters, and I draw on the sights, sounds and atmosphere of the city during those extraordinary early months of a conflict that eventually lasted for fifteen years.

Readers who enjoy internationally-set and morally ambiguous novels by writers such as Graham Greene, John le Carré and William Boyd will feel right at home here.

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Trigger warnings: This is an adult book with some sexual scenes. There are also descriptions of war and the damage it causes to people and property. None of this is gratuitous; in every case it is essential to the story.