Cracking of the Mask

Everything had been planned and executed to perfection. Where was the satisfaction, then? Why was happiness always so elusive? Zenon McClow, a businessman with a checkered past, flees the United States, hiding first in Ecuador and then in the tropical paradise of New Caledonia. Plagued by burning existential questions, he begins to write down his life story while on the remote Isle of Pines. After failing to find relief, he turns to penning The Mask, a historical novel set in the mysterious land of ancient Thrace. Zenon's fiction endeavor is inspired by Evmondia, a kind-hearted Bulgarian girl living in New York who introduced him to the colorful world of the Thracians. He bases his story on events from the 4th century BCE, a time when Philip II of Macedonia, the father of Alexander 'the Great,' endangered Thrace. In Zenon's tale, a young Greek scholar, Trysimachus, sets out on a perilous quest to the court of the Thracian king Ketriporis. As...