A searing debut novel told with the dexterity of Graham Greene, the moral complexity of Ian McEwan, and the tension of a thriller.

Dazzling new fiction writer Liam Durcan blends his knowledge of the intricacies of neuroscience with a literary ability for riveting, layered storytelling. In *García’s Heart*, neurologist Patrick Lazerenko travels to The Hague to witness the war crimes trial of his beloved mentor, Hernan García, a Honduran doctor accused of involvement in torture. Driven by his own youthful memories of the man and his family, Lazerenko is determined to get to the truth behind the shocking accusations, even as the prosecution and a relentless journalist suspect Patrick of hiding information. The defense has its own ideas for Patrick, hoping to use his latest research to help vindicate García. As Patrick struggles with his conscience, and the pressures from the neuroeconomics company he abandoned in Boston, he must also contend with seeing García’s daughter, his former lover, and the surprising influence a shady advocacy group seems to have over her, and with the fact García himself is refusing to speak, to anyone.

Taut, probing, highly intelligent, skillfully written, *García’s Heart* delves into the central issues of today, from terrorism to bioethics, and the age-old dilemmas of loyalty and betrayal.

*From the Hardcover edition.*

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### From Publishers Weekly

Neurologist Durcan (*A Short Journey by Car*) dissects the ethics involved when politics, medicine and violence collide in this finely wrought novel about a neurologist turned biotech entrepreneur who travels to The Hague to witness his mentor's war crimes trial. Patrick Lazerenko is a punk teen in Montreal when he first meets Hernan García, the Spanish immigrant owner of a neighborhood grocery store. Caught trying to vandalize Hernan's store, Patrick is roped into working off the damages and soon finds himself attached to the García family. When Patrick sees Hernan's backroom medical consultations with local immigrants, he is inspired to become a doctor himself. Years later, a journalist exposes Hernan—dubbed the Angel of Lepaterique—as having been mixed up in the CIA-backed torture of subversive citizens in Honduras in the 1980s. Parallels to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are acute (and even overtly identified) as Hernan is accused of witnessing and aiding in detainee torture. Subplots involving a devious political think-tank, the long-expired romance between Patrick and Hernan's daughter and the goings-on at Patrick's company, provide a rich backdrop to the trial, but the centerpiece is the mélange of complex feelings that arise within Patrick, who finds himself simultaneously condemning and rooting for Hernan. *(Nov.)*
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### Review

“Engrossing. . . . Durcan doesn’t offer any easy answers in this searching meticulously observed novel of moral complexity. He does offer plenty to think about.”
— *Toronto Star*

“Lucid and subtle. . . . Durcan has crafted an entertaining and convincing portrayal of a man awkwardly perched atop a precipice of identities and histories on the verge of collapse.”
— *Montreal Review of Books*

“Couldn't be timelier. . . . Thought-provoking and memorable.”
— Montreal *Gazette*

“Stunningly well-written. . . . Durcan writes the way one imagines a brain surgeon employs his tools — with strength to cut through bone and feather-light delicacy to excise minute strands of tissue. Durcan's style is a mixture of precision and playfulness, irony and moral seriousness reminiscent of British master Ian McEwan, or even a slightly restrained Martin Amis. . . . A remarkable accomplishment.”
— *Winnipeg Free Press*

“With this remarkable debut novel, Liam Durcan, a neurologist and the author of the much-lauded short story collection **A Short Journey by Car** (2004), has firmly ensconced himself within the hallowed ranks of doctors making successful forays into literature, a line running straight from Chekov through William Carlos Williams and W. Somerset Maugham to, most recently, Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Vincent Lam. . . .There are evocations of Ian McEwan’s **Saturday** here . . . Durcan beats McEwan at his own game by resisting the tendency to show off and, in doing so, produces a restrained, artfully paced work built around its central ethical question, which is not so much “what is evil?” as “what, exactly, is the nature of good?”
— Q*uill & Quire* (starred review)

“Like a cross between John le Carre and Ian McEwan —* ***García's Heart***,<... *

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