The Flies of a Summer

About the Book

“For Whom the Bell Tolls for Central America: The Flies of a Summer” is the story of several young Americans living in Central America during the war-torn years of the Cold War. Scott Perez is a college graduate working on boats in Panama when he gets a career opportunity from an enigmatic old man claiming to be a general from the Cuban Revolution. While traveling throughout Central America, doing research for the old man, he learns he has been a courier for a vast Communist network and the old man is indeed Camilo Cienfuegos, the Cuban General presumed to have died in a plane crash in the sixties. Bill Walters is an army engineer stationed in Panama who dreams of a career in the Foreign Service. While doing several humanitarian missions for the embassy, there is a massacre in one of the villages in which he worked. Bill discovers the Guatemalan military committed the crime but in the interests of democracy, he is asked by the ambassador to cover it up. The two men are drawn to Guatemala where they struggle to walk a fine line between the warring ideologies of communism and democracy.

About the Author

I first grew interested in storytelling when I studied the basics of creative writing from a genius English teacher in high school. I went on to hone my writing skills as an English major at the University of Virginia. Before school, I spent most of my childhood traveling Central and South America, living the life of an army brat. I have since returned many times to Central America to visit my mother’s family in Panama. To write this book, I interviewed members of my family, researched the many heroes and villains in the war-scarred history of the Americas, and drew on my own passion for this enigmatic land.