The broken cedar - Martin Malone

A shocking and compelling novel of middle-eastern conflict, turning on one man's crisis of conscience as his death approaches in modern-day Lebanon. Khalil owns a small electrical shop in Lebanon, on the Israeli border, serving the needs of soldiers from the nearby UN compound. An elderly man nearing the end of his life, he has one secret that torments him day and night - years previously, he witnessed the lynching of two UN soldiers. One died, but the other, saved from death by Khalil and fellow onlookers, lives on in a home for the insane, the beating having robbed him of all his mental faculties. The Irish soldier's family believe him dead, but when his son, O'Driscoll, comes into Khalil's shop demanding help in finding his father's remains and returning them to Ireland, Khalil must make a terrible decision: should he let O'Driscoll believe that his father is dead, and help in his futile search for the remains, or should he tell him the truth and betray his personal promise to the man he saw brutalised years before?;Depicting the effects of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on the Lebanese and the role of the UN peace keeping force, The Broken Cedar turns on one man's terrible crisis of conscience and his attempts to reconcile past actions with present consequences as death approaches. More than this, it considers the role of the family and male/female relationships in modern-day Lebanon, giving a unique insight into the mind of the middle-eastern man.