Beyond Recognition

In this Novel, our hero, Arthur, a regular church goer and a married father of two children, leaves his native Wales, UK, for a two years assignment with a charitable foundation on the Island of Mindanao, the Philippines. Exposed to a more permissive society than his own, he fends off various temptations until he meets Didi. His love for her breaks his ability to think rationally and he accepts to participate in a scheme developed by her shrewd brother that would free him to marry her. For a fee and with the help of the Islamic fundamentalist movement of Abu Sayyaf, active on the Island, his death is staged in a car accident where his body is presumably burnt beyond recognition. Arthur then marries Didi under an assumed name. With time his life becomes increasingly turbulent and circumstances force him to try and redeem his original identity. However, he finds the task daunting as he struggles to start a new life with Didi, back in the UK, and reconcile it with his own British family who gave him for dead twelve years earlier. Eventually, things fall into place with the various pieces fitting together. While the characters in this novel are fictious, their actions are woven in non-fiction real life settings, reflected in present day issues, such as the difficulties sometimes encountered in keeping up a married life, the behavior of persons as they move from one culture to another and the underlying causes and realities of fundamentalist insurgency movements.