Reprisal

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October 1974: Mexico’s “dirty war” against political dissidents is winding down. But for Daniel Mendoza, the war is far from over...and it’s personal. His daughter and adopted son, teachers at a rural college, are abducted by federal agents. Tape recordings made by the most wanted guerrilla leader in the country are found in their belongings. It’s a setup, but they are arrested and taken to the worst prison in Mexico City: The Black Palace. Charged with social dissolution, the worst crime against the state, they are sentenced to lengthy prison terms and held incommunicado. Against all odds, Daniel assembles a rescue team, hosted by a once great but destitute film director. He and Daniel develop an audacious plot, including infiltrating a ruthless, government-protected crime syndicate. The goal: freeing his children and exacting a fitting reprisal.

“Jacobs’ Reprisal takes me someplace new where I have never visited by painting incredible, important, and authentic descriptions of both city and country settings. He also introduces me to people unlike any I have ever known. While reading, I had the sense that the characters were real people, and this makes me care about what happens to them. Daniel Mendoza’s daughter, Sonia, is only 17 when the novel begins, but her strength and courage coupled with her display of vulnerability make her important to the reader.”

—Jann Jansen-James, Pleasant Hill, CA, author of The Truthseekers

“A theme resonating in all Jacobs’ novels, including Reprisal, is the transcendence of the human spirit as a force for good, despite seemingly insurmountable forces that aim to divide and conquer his characters’ striving for a just cause.”

—Tim Kennedy, Ph.D, author of Where the Rivers Meet the Sky: A Collaborative Approach to Participatory Development

“Jacobs’ latest novel builds on the rich palette of characters that he has created in his previous Daniel Mendoza novels. Readers of those works will delight to engage with them again. But he also introduces two new characters, Gabriel Harmon, a Cherokee Marine counter-insurgency expert, and Linh, his adopted Vietnamese daughter, a victim of war who is deaf and mute. With these two characters, Jacobs introduces the use of sign language that plays an inventive and emotionally satisfying role in furthering a sensational plot.” 

—Steven Burchik, San Ramon, California, author of A Compass and a Camera: A Year in Vietnam (2014), and Focus on Vietnam (2016).