JAGUAR by Loup Durand - BOOK - ADVANCE READING COPY
See all titles by Loup Durand.It is the 1920's and the world is in a state of upheaval. Everyone seems to be involved in deadly games of treachery, violence, and political intrigue. Everyone, that is, except for Candido Cavalcanti, a young millionaire playboy. Disowned by his father because of his pacifist views and dilettantish ways, Candido goes AWOL from the Brazillian Army, escaping to Germany. There he meets Samantha Frank, a beautiful young American heiress who has run away to Europe. She says she is searching for excitement and love, but Candido quickly realizes that she is really searching for danger - she wants to escape from a middle-class existence she believes is boring. Desperate to impress the wild but lovely American woman, Candido invents a more interesting identity for himself: he becomes the "Jaguar", a daring and fearless anarchist.
Candido's playful deceit quickly plunges the two naive idealists into a world far more dangerous than even Samantha could ever have wished for. The game Candido invents turns horribly real - and they soon learn the rules are now being dictated by Aliochka Alekhin, a handsome, charming, and deadly Russian spy.
Alekhin quickly - and brilliantly, as if life were merely a chess game and all the people his pawns - builds the Jaguar into an international criminal, a symbol of terror for the world to fear. No one knows Alekhin's motives, but what started off as a lark for two innocent lovers suddenly takes on epic proportions as Candido is wanted for a string of grisly murders supposedly committed by the dread Jaguar.
From Germany to South America, from Russia to New York, Candido and Samantha crisscross the globe in a frantic attempt to thwart their unstoppable foe and gain their freedom. on the run, always trying to stay one step ahead of the law as well as Alekhin, Candido is forced to learn the true meaning of politics, the real meaning of life and death, and above all, the meaning of love. In the stunning climax, Candido has his most important revelation - finally learning that he and the shrewd Jaguar whose name he carries have a lot more in common than he ever would have thought...
Exciting and moving, Jaguar takes two ordinary people and puts them in extraordinary circumstances that will change them forever. In doing so, Loup Durand proves what the critics said after the publication of Daddy: that he belongs "on a level with Tom Clancy and Len Deighton's best!"