Panama: a Novel

PANAMA captures the sweep of this country's tumultuous history. Moving from pivotal events in Panama's past to the American withdrawal in 1999, this is the action-filled saga of a man and a nation searching for their identities. Hank Duque is a third-generation Canal Zonian, a hybrid of American and Panamanian ancestry, who returns to Panama in 1989, after a twenty-five year exile. Immediately upon his arrival, a La Guardia intelligence officer, Major Carlos Mejias, recognizes Hank and knows of his role in the bloody 1964 student riot. Hank wonders how the major was able to identify him so quickly. Hank's odyssey takes him throughout Panama, from the teeming streets of Panama City to the impenetrable jungle of the interior, from the landscaped boulevards of the American Canal Zone to a squalid cell in a Panamanian prison known as La Preventiva. 'Sal si puedes,' Hank's Panamanian grandfather had implored. 'Get out if you can.' Now, twenty-five years later, Hank has returned.