Brazzaville

What happened to Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund, Louis Renault, and Sam after the plane for Portugal took off, leaving moviegoers with those now famous lines that Rick uttered as he and Louis walk into the fog, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."? The authors have pieced together the history of our brave band of players in a world gone mad in the throes of World War II.

Brazzaville is the code name of Pierre Renault's group of French Resistance fighters based in Morocco. They join the foursome on the first of many missions to rescue their friends being detained by Vichy and to form the nucleus of a group fighting the Nazis. The British secret service protects Ilsa and Victor in Portugal, but the Nazis take Isla and transport her to Spain where she becomes a pawn of Franco's government. Rick, not knowing what has happened to Ilsa, marries Yvonne, his old girlfriend, and they fight the Germans in Morocco until fate intervenes. We see how Rick and his friends help in the invasion of North Africa and beyond. Our troop rides with Patton to Algiers, and the Allies drop Rick, Louis, and Sam into France to help unify the French Resistance and provide the Allies with information to make D-Day a success.

This historical novel looks at a world at war and the friendships and loves found and lost. It answers the 75-year-old question: What happened to these people?