Introduction

Set in Tunisia and France in 1935, Dido's Crown is a taut historical adventure influenced by Indiana Jones, The Thin Man, and John le Carré.

Mary Wilson MacPherson has always been adept at putting the past behind her: her father's death, her sister's disappearance, and her complicated relationship with childhood friends Tom and Will. But that all changes when, traveling to North Africa on business for her husband, Mary meets a handsome French-Tunisian trader who holds a mysterious package her husband has purchased -- a package which has drawn the interest not only of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, but the Nazis as well.

When Tom and Will arrive in Tunisia, Mary suddenly finds herself on a race across the mesmerizing and ever-changing landscapes of the country, to the shores of southern France, and all across the wide blue Mediterranean. Despite her best efforts at distancing herself from her husband's world, Mary has become embroiled in a mystery that could threaten not only Tunisian and British security in the dangerous political landscape of 1935, but Mary's beliefs about her past and the security of her own future.

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Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

TUNISIA

MAY 1935

Everything in the ancient port town of Bizerte dazzled: the white stuccoed buildings, the shimmering golden sand, the bleached sails of the dhows, the shocking turquoise of the Mediterranean. Shielding their eyes against the brilliance, Tom Harris and Will Simpson, Englishmen edging inexorably and uncomfortably into middle age, fanned their rapidly pinking faces with their hats. Standing together on a sweeping balcony, very close but not quite touching, they watched the dhows glide lazily in the distance.

"This is more the thing, isn't it?" Tom asked, nodding at the sparkling water and the brilliant North African sky. "Better than that dark mediaeval place back in the bowels of the old medina."

Will sniffed. "You never could stand squalor for long."

Tom looked over at him. "I wouldn't call that squalor, necessarily."

Will raised his eyebrows in response.

"Fine. I defer to your formidable store of knowledge on the subject of squalor," Tom said, turning away and looking back out at the water.

Will sighed. "Don't let's argue. It's this devilish heat that's making us cross."

They subsided into silence again, checking their watches more often than was strictly necessary. Tom turned his back on the view and looked at their waterfront villa. It was well appointed, well located, and, most importantly, the staff was discreet.

"I suppose my father was good for something after all. Filthy lucre and all that," Tom said.

"Yes, but blessedly useful filthy lucre. Don't get sentimental and moral on me now, dear."

Tom opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the adhan of the mouathen, calling the faithful to prayer above the racket of automobile noise.

Will resumed fanning his flushed face. "Do you know, we've heard this scores of times these last few days, but I've never known exactly what he's been saying."

Tom smiled. Language, any language, made his skin tingle, his heart thrill. It always made significantly more sense than the people who spoke it. "Allahu Akbar, God is Greatest," he translated. They listened silently, glancing occasionally at each other. "Hayya ?ala ?-?sal?t, come to prayer."

"It sounds like music," Will said.

Tom smiled, and he leaned closer as they listened to the ancient song flow through the streets. "L? il?ha ill?-All?h, There is no God except the One God."

The last melodic words of the call to prayer echoed away, and the busy streets of Bizerte slowed, like a wind-up toy creaking to a stop. Tom glanced at Will and they stepped back into the cool shade of their villa, closing the doors behind them.

If pressed, one would have to admit that they were neither of them cinema-handsome, yet admittedly there was an appealing sense of dash to them both. Will Simpson's jaw was entirely too sloping, a great ski jump of a face. The wrinkles of middle age and a hard life scored his forehead under unruly dark hair which never seemed to be tamed by the pomade. His mouth, however, was full and sensuous, youthful and bewitching, often twisting in a wry grin.

Tom Harris was nearly as tall as Will, with individual features which would have been perfect on different people, but together looked strange under his curling dark hair: a weak chin, cupid's bow lips, narrow icy cat's eyes with deeply scored crow's feet. When he laughed, he looked like a caricature; when in serious concentration, he was otherworldly and beautiful.

Tom tossed his fedora onto the desk alongside Will's, smoothing back his hair and loosening his tie. He checked his watch and looked at Will, who was checking his own, unbuttoning his top button with one hand. At that moment, there was a knock on the front door, and a graceful young Tunisian man glided in with a tray, delivering a sweating bucket of ice, a carafe of water, two tiny steaming cups of strong coffee, and a small, orange-scented cake. He set the tray on the sideboard and paused, his eyes slightly widened.

"Merci," Tom said.

The young man inclined his head. "Are you dining in this evening?" he asked in heavily accented English.

"No, but we will require breakfast in the morning."

"Of course. Nine o'clock," he said, raising his eyebrows, then held out his hand expectantly.

"D'accord, merci." Tom gave the young man a 10-franc coin, ushered him out, and closed and locked the door behind him.

Will passed a demitasse to Tom. "So Saidini will be here at nine, then."

Tom chuckled at the sudden flush on Will's face and neck.

"You have a lot of cheek, Simpson," he said. "He's a contact, not a conquest."

Will flashed Tom a mixed look of annoyance and fondness but didn't deign to respond. Instead, he gestured Tom to the seat next to him and they sat carefully on the delicately carved but terribly uncomfortable olive wood chairs, sipping their bracing coffee. Tom looked up at the ceiling fan that did nothing but push the warm afternoon air around. "What now?" he asked.

"We wait."

"I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed.

After long, lethargic minutes, Tom stood and poured them both new glasses of water. He moved aside the orange cake, searching for a knife with which to cut it; as he did, he found a piece of paper folded neatly under the plate. He glanced at Will, then unfolded the note, which had all the appearance of having been scrawled hastily; an unnerving drop of something now iron-brown obscured the ragged ends of words on the right margin.

He read the note through three times. When the contents finally started making sense, he handed it to Will with a shaking hand. "Why?" he asked.

Will ignored him and read through the note, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. Tom knew exactly what that meant: he had 20 years' experience keeping an eye on the subtle shift of Will's emotions. Tom ran a hand through his hair again. "Why is she here?" He winced at the note of panic that had worked its way into his voice.

"Why does she do anything?" Will snapped.

Tom ignored the jab and began to pace. "When they realize she doesn't have it…"

"I know. Now be quiet and make yourself useful." He handed the note back to Tom, who pulled an elegant silver lighter from his pocket. He clicked the flame into life, and watched the paper curl into dust in the crystal ashtray on the sideboard.

"Damn her," Will said under his breath, unlocking a drawer on the desk and pulling out a sheaf of papers, a dog-eared map, and a sleeve of ammunition.

The town around them rumbled to life again outside their doors. "Just when we'd escaped your squalor," Tom said.

"Mmm," Will said, not attending. "Go charm the manager, won't you? Hand her some of that filthy lucre of yours."

"Yes, yes, of course," Tom said, heading for the door, half in a daze.

"We were so close, damn her. Always has to complicate things, doesn't she?" Will asked.

Tom's heart constricted, and he shrugged what could have been assent or a lifetime's confusion. He stepped out into the bright, hot sunshine.

Hours later, the brilliant sunlight had faded, leaving behind a wash of stars and the scent of jasmine. Tom shut out the night behind the doors to their veranda, then, with a last mournful look around their elegant villa, slipped on the white dinner jacket that hung on the back of one of the chairs. "Ready?" he asked, adjusting his bow tie.

Will nodded, and then walked out the villa's front door without another word or look. Tom patted his pocket with a shaking hand; his semi-automatic pistol rested reassuringly close to his chest. "God damned Nazis," Tom muttered, following Will, as he always did, out into the night.?

CHAPTER TWO

The naval attaché's party was in full swing, at a villa near Bizerte's Quartier des Andalous with an astonishing view of the Mediterranean and the busy shipping traffic slipping in and out of the ancient port. But the partygoers had no interest in the view. Less than an hour in, the room was dreadfully noisy and already completely sodden, champagne and sidecars and martinis flowing freely to the accompaniment of the band's bouncing attempts at Mireille's "Les trois gendarmes" and "Puisque vous partez en voyage".

Mary MacPherson forced her way through the press of sweaty and drunken dancers first with polite apologies, then with the imperious raising of her eyebrow, and finally with a few well-aimed kicks with her devastating Ferragamos. She eventually stumbled through to an empty veranda overlooking an empty beach, having miraculously spilled only a few drops of her drink. Out in the fresh air, within arm's reach, the famous night-blooming jasmine of Tunisia climbed up the shimmering white wall on a rickety trellis, half-covering blue shutters and an intricately painted Eye of Fatima. She leaned, somewhat breathless, against the veranda's iron railing.

Mary was a lovely woman, or at least so she'd been told. Her eyes, though set perhaps a bit too close, were clear and icy blue, and her cheekbones were high and delicate, balancing an aggressive jawline. Her thick dark hair curled fashionably around her ears in natural waves; she resolutely ignored the silver blossoming from her temples. And the corners of her mouth, simply by fate and the damnable influence of her ancestors, turned down. This gave her a perpetual look of hauteur and disapproval, when she might in fact be pleased, or happy, or concentrating, or daydreaming. But if she were honest with herself it was usually disapproval, which she felt acutely at the moment.

She checked her watch yet again; he was late. She had rushed back that afternoon from the Tunis Grand Prix to scrape off the dust and settle her face into something approaching civilized before the party. "Why a cocktail party, for God's sake," she muttered, tapping her blood red lacquered nails on the railing. He wanted the cover of a crowd, but she had most definitely had enough of crowds for one day.

Early that morning Mary had left her hotel, catering to English tourists like herself, in a state of nervous excitement, and as a result had been entirely too early for the race. With a few hours to kill, too excited to sit and eat or take coffee, she'd wandered the small center of Tunis. The nouvelle ville, built by the French over the fifty years of their occupation, was grayly chic and European, with tree-lined streets and grand colonial government monstrosities, an attempt to re-create France on the southern shore of the Mediterranean: lovely, but terribly boring.

In contrast, the vieux ville of Tunis was a sea of geometric chalk-white buildings piled on top of each other like a poorly executed cubist painting, interspersed with graceful domes and spiky minarets, winding streets and souks, where the men wore scarlet chechias and the women were clad head to toe in pale yellow sefseri.

She wandered the alleyways of the vieux ville and poked her head into the cramped stalls of the souks, following her nose to the perfumers' street, passing tiny cafés lined with men smoking and arguing. Despite her fascination, it was the anxiety of the crowds, the hot press of bodies and breath, the muttered and cried Arabic that she couldn't understand, which drove her out through the Porte de Paris and back into the nouvelle ville as the faithful were called to the lunchtime Zuhr prayer.

She made her way to the Carthage street circuit and took a seat in the front row of the grandstand, a prime spot right under the "B" in the Café's Bondin sign. It afforded her a brilliant view of the crews and the cars, and if she craned her neck just right, she could see Wimille and his Type 59 Bugatti on the front row, next to Varzi and his sleek Auto Union. So intent was she on the cars and drivers, she hardly realized the stands had filled in around her. The engines roared to life, and a thrum of excitement passed through the crowd as the rest of the cars took their places on the starting grid. If she couldn't drive, watching was the next best thing; she'd do almost anything to be there. Including helping John MacPherson.

Mary shook herself, the memories of the day's race receding in a cloud of dust. She checked her watch again; whoever this man was, he was five minutes late. They do things differently here, she reminded herself. It was a pace of life that had only a passing resemblance to hers, ruled by clocks and academic terms, The Daily Service on the wireless starting the day, the first post, seemingly endless discussions about what she wanted from the butcher's and did she think they had enough butter to last until the next milk delivery, the second post, and The Children's Hour reminding her it was teatime.

She checked her watch again; six minutes late. She quelled the urge to pick at her chipping lacquered nails and instead folded her arms. Acting as a pack mule for her husband was an indignity she could bear in payment for that glorious race, but her impatience was starting to get the better of her.

It was only a month ago that her husband had made his offer. She had been sitting late one night with him in his frigid office, the rain hissing at the window. "His name is Alain," John had said, concentrating on the papers illuminated by the small circle of light from his rickety desk lamp.

Mary, sitting on the edge of the desk, blew out a stream of smoke in his direction. "Well, that narrows it down."

John pulled a book toward him and skimmed the index with ink-stained fingers. "He'll find you."

"And how will I know it's him?"

"He'll say, 'Mrs. MacPherson, I have a package for you.'"

"So clever. Very Dashiell Hammett, darling," she said with a derisive laugh.

He lowered his pen and looked up at her. His heavy brow and aquiline nose should have made him look cruel, but paired with his gray eyes, short dark hair, and sensuous mouth, he exuded power and intelligence. It was too bad, she thought yet again, that I loathe him so very much.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do you want the Grand Prix ticket or not?" he asked.

She glared at him in response, which was approximately as effective as one might think. "Obviously."

He returned to his books. "He'll meet you at the post-race party thrown by the French naval attaché in Bizerte."

"Swanky."

"Not particularly. Bring it back here straightaway."

Mary dropped the cigarette on the stone floor of John's office and ground it out under her foot in response.

The band started in on an off-key version of "You're the

Top", and she checked her watch: seven minutes late.

Finally, at fifteen minutes late, she gave up and was about to turn and go back into the party to search for this Alain character. She sensed someone approaching the veranda. Well, about damned time, she thought.

"Hullo Wilson."

Mary grew quite still. Only one kind of man used her married name, and they were usually deeply annoying or unbearably stupid. Or her husband. The people who really mattered called her by her maiden name, Mary Wilson. Or just Wilson.

She didn't turn to face him, but continued to gaze at the sea. If she didn't turn around, nothing would change. Always press ahead, was her motto. Never look back, never… "What the devil are you doing in Tunisia?" she demanded, unable to control herself.

"It's good to see you, too," he said gently.

She turned around slowly and forced a smile. Tom was dashing, almost absurdly so, with his ivory dinner jacket and slicked-back hair. Her smile hitched. Damn him.

"You look lovely," he said. He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, and eventually settled for jamming them into his pockets.

His lopsided grin made her heart flutter, so she took a long draught of her watery vodka tonic instead of trying to speak, her hand shaking as she put it down on the railing. They looked at each other for long moments, his grin fading, to both her consternation and relief.

"At this point you usually tell me to go to the devil," he prompted.

"Go to the devil," she said, half-heartedly.

His grin returned.

She refused to give in. "What are you doing here?" she

demanded, folding her arms.

"When have you known me to pass up a good party?"

Mary had a list, but at that moment, Will appeared. He cut a swath through the increasingly shirt-sleeved crowd, with his wide smile and perfect double-breasted tuxedo. Mary looked him up and down. "You must be perishing in that," she said as welcome.

"A small price to pay," he replied, smoothing down his lapels with obvious pleasure. He looked her over in return. "Navy suits you, Wilson. You should wear it more often. It makes your skin look like porcelain. But do be careful. Any more time in this climate and your complexion will be ruined."

"I won't be here long."

"Let's hope," Will said, pulling out a silver case and offering her a cigarette.

"Since when do you smoke?" she asked, taking a cigarette and letting him light it for her.

"Since the summer of '31, I expect," he said, taking the drink from her hand and helping himself to a sip. He wrinkled his nose and handed it back. "Oh, that's right. You weren't there, were you?"

"Now, now, children," Tom said vaguely.

Mary looked over at Tom, and noticed with a twinge of annoyance that he was only half-listening to their banter. Instead, he was scanning the crowd, although he kept a stance of casual disinterest, leaning against the railing.

"Dance with her already, for God's sake," Will said, checking his watch.

"Good idea," Tom murmured, taking the drink from Mary's hand and handing it to Will. "If you please," he said, offering his arm with a flourish.

"I don't dance anymore."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I really don't," she said, but Tom had taken her hand and pulled her onto the floor. She dropped her cigarette and ground it out underfoot. The band began a serviceable "Night and Day", and he pulled her close; she rested her cheek on his shoulder. After a few turns, Mary's eyes widened. "What's in your pocket?"

"Which one?" Tom grinned.

She laughed, despite herself. He pulled her closer and she inhaled; Tom always wore a cologne which suggested cinnamon and clove and it made her head spin. After a few moments indulging in his warmth, she said, "Is that a gun?"

"Yes."

She stepped back and stopped dancing, forcing another couple to maneuver around them. "What —"

He leaned down and kissed her. She struggled for a moment, but she was no fool. If Tom wanted to kiss her, she wasn't going to stop him. Just as she pressed into him, opening her mouth, he turned his head and whispered into her ear, "Do you see the woman standing near the bar?"

"What?"

"Over my right shoulder. Wearing the yellow frock."

The woman was perhaps in her early 30s, with dimpled cheeks, wide blue eyes, and turned-up nose, her honey-colored hair pinned up to approximate a bobbed hairstyle fashionable ten years before. "Yes, I see her. Blondes should never wear yellow. It makes them look pasty," she sniffed.

Tom chuckled.

"What about her?"

"She's hoping to have a chat with you tonight."

"Is that so? And why would that be?" She was only half-listening to his responses, leaning into his warmth.

"Because she thinks you have something she wants."

Her heart jumped. "I haven’t got a thing," she said lightly, trying to turn them so she could see the woman at the bar again. Tom kept them firmly in place.

He leaned in close again, whispering in her ear. "If she doesn't get what she wants, and she won't, because you couldn't possibly have it, she'll try to kill you."

She pulled back and looked up at him. "What funny little stories you tell to amuse me. How charming," she said.

He ignored her and turned them so they faced the balcony. "Very soon, Will is going to make a scene."

"I'm waiting for you to tell me something I couldn't have guessed myself."

Tom laughed outright, and the rumbling vibrated all along her chest and her arms. "When he does, I want you to follow me, no questions asked," he said.

"You make a lot of assumptions." She swallowed hard; though he was abominably late, she couldn't afford to miss her meeting with John's contact.

"You'll have to trust me. When I take your hand, you must be quick."

Mary looked up into his face. "Tom. Stop playing now." He turned them again, and she saw that the woman in yellow was stalking toward them. There was a lull in the music and Will's voice rang out across the room. "How dare you?"

The dancers, the drinkers at the bar, even the musicians turned to look at him. His tie was askew and his face was red; a lithe young man mopped the remains of Mary’s drink from his face with an exquisite silk handkerchief. Mary only saw this out of the corner of her eye, as Tom maneuvered her through the crowd, out a back door, and down a set of worn and rickety wooden stairs.

The stairway smelled of rotting fish and stale urine, and she gagged. "What —" she started, but he squeezed her hand with brutal force and she snapped her mouth shut. At the bottom of the stairs, the ramshackle garden led out through an arched stucco gate overgrown with jasmine onto the wide beach.

Tom urged her along, and she tried both to hurry and to hold up her long satin dress at the same time. They stumbled for a few more yards and took shelter behind a rowboat listing on its side up the beach. The traffic on the boulevard beyond was light, though the dull flash of the infrequent headlights threatened to illuminate their hiding place.

"What the devil is going on here?" she gasped, pulling off her t-strap heels and dangling them from her fingers.

"Shhh." He peered over the boat's hull.

"No damn you," she said, tugging him back down. "Tell me."

"I can't," he said, shaking her off.

"No, now. What has Will done?"

Tom popped up and began waving his arm wildly, then pulled her up as a sleek Renault Nervasport screamed around the corner. He grabbed Mary's hand again. "That's our ride," he said, pulling her along as he ran across the sand. Mary escaped his grip and matched his strides, as well as she could given the dress tangling around her legs. A strange kind of excitement bubbled up in her chest, and she couldn't suppress a laugh. As they finally shook free of the sand and reached solid ground, the car screeched to a halt and Will jumped out, looking up and down the road with impatience. She slowed and tried to turn back, realizing too late she had dropped her handbag somewhere on the beach.

"Come on, Wilson!" Will yelled.

At that moment a cranky old Renault PG careened around

the corner and skidded to a stop just feet from Will. The woman in yellow leapt out and without a word or a signal, fired a shot in the air. Then, aiming the gun directly at Will's forehead, she stalked over and, with shocking efficiency, pistol-whipped him. He fell against the Nervasport and slid, slack-mouthed, to the ground.

"Simpson!" Mary cried, surging forward.

Tom pulled the gun from his pocket and aimed at the woman. His shot went wide of the mark, a glancing blow to her forearm. In response, the woman simply smiled and leveled her gun at him. In a sudden fury of noise, he crumpled to the ground.

The woman turned predatory eyes on Mary. "Kommen Sie mit," she said, pointing the gun at her. "In the car, now!"

"What? No, I'm not getting in the car!" A shot rang out and buzzed past her ear. Anger exploded in Mary's mind, her limbs: touching a live wire. She reached over and wrenched the gun from Tom's hand, ignoring the red blossoming across the shoulder of his white dinner jacket.

The woman in yellow smiled, seemingly delighted, and pointed her gun at Will's temple. "Come quietly now, Mrs. MacPherson, or they'll both die."

"Mary, give me the gun," Tom groaned.

Mary pulled the trigger; the shot missed spectacularly so she tried again. This time, there was nothing more than a sickening click. She tried again, and again, as the woman approached her, her own gun raised.

"Auf’s geht. Now," she said, pointing the gun at Mary's forehead.

"What in the bloody hell is going on here?" Mary yelled. "No, I won't —" Her protestation died on her lips as she, too, was pistol whipped into unconsciousness. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Mary is relatively independent for a woman in the 1930s, but she's surrounded by men. What accommodations do you think she made to fit in with the men in her world?

2. All of the characters have a secret; how has keeping that secret changed them? How has it helped or hurt them in the mission they're on in Dido's Crown?

3. What challenges do you think Alain faced growing up mixed-race in a colonial society?

4. Tunisia is a character of its own in Dido's Crown. How do you feel the landscape and country affected the other characters?

5. How are Mary's motivations different from her sister's? Are they different?

6. What parallels do you see between 1935 and 2016?

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