Imprints of a Gazelle

Part travelogue, part thriller, and a story of maturing emotional relationships, Imprints of a Gazelle takes the reader in search of a young Algerian girl who has eloped with her Bedouin lover into the Western Sahara where the Polisario are fighting a bitter war of independence against the Moroccan army.

It is also a study of two relationships: one, which is brave, caring and supportive, is contrasted with that of Sarah and Alan from London, which is founded on self delusion and fear.

When exposed to the harshness of the desert their weaknesses are brutally exposed. What begins as a holiday turns into a nightmare. Will Alan be able to discard his pseudo manliness and show his real and vulnerable self to the wife trying so desperately to know him that she might love him? Will Sarah grow into that sense of freedom and empowerment which comes to a woman when she frees herself from the emotional entrapment of the self-centred man? Will they both reach safety, and will their marriage still be intact as they are hunted by police whilst being chased through the desert by a psychopath?

Historical, cultural and geographical detail bring this fast paced psychological thriller to life, and endow it with a richness of colour and mood that seems to transport the reader into the mountains and deserts of a wild and scarcely populated part of the world, and to the people who inhabit it.