The Mission (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9798348236441)

Deep in the remote mountainous regions of Guatemala, the country's Indigenous Maya people line up at a rudimentary clinic for life-saving treatment and surgery. It's only made possible by an army of volunteers from overseas, including medical students-all who are risking their lives during a time when drug traffickers, rebel soldiers, and corrupt government officials are clashing during the civil war that gripped the Central American nation from the early sixties to the mid-nineties.

The Mission is a deeply layered story that explores how citizens and foreigners are routinely kidnapped for ransom money. Where the poorest people go without medical care and hundreds of thousands are "disappeared" or summarily massacred. And where tight bonds are forged between Guatemalans of every stripe and the medical teams on the ground. The narrative leaps forward several decades when a new crop of surgeons and medical practitioners fly into the village to continue this benevolent work. Two include a Canadian couple, surgeon Jeremy and psychotherapist Iona, who each have had previous experiences in the country. During the latest mission, they become caught up in a dark web of conspiracy that threatens their lives, leaving them unsure of who they can trust: the government, the Mossad agents who represent Israel's longstanding connection to Guatemala, or their fellow medical practitioners and local friends and colleagues.

Written by Dr. John Hagen, who has travelled to Guatemala on medical missions similar to those depicted in the novel, the complex but tightly woven storylines leave the reader wondering where the line between fiction and reality intersects. Hagen's surgical expertise and lived experiences bring the scenes to life in this action-adventure novel in deft detail. Along with sharply written insider expertise into medical practice and the Guatemalan genocide, Hagen also delves deeply into other areas, such as cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, which come together in an intelligent and fast-paced narrative that will keep readers guessing at every twist and turn.