The Great Phelsuma Caper (A Diplomatic Memoir)

Phelsumas are day geckos, friendly small lizards that are harmless to humans but devastating to insects. You need to have some in your home, especially if you live in the tropics. This story is about day geckos, but also about a lot of other things. There are some rare birds, like the pink pigeon and the Mauritius kestrel and parakeet, and a pet African black cheeked lovebird named Emmet. "Endangered species" is a theme.

Quite a few human actors also appear, some better known than others. Among the former are General Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, Richard Nixon, Queen Elizabeth II, Henry Kissinger, several United States Senators, renowned criminal defense attorney Plato Cacheris, and other famous people who make fleeting appearances. The lesser known characters include an avian ethologist (mistaken for an ornithologist), a Mauritian forester-bureaucrat, one ambassador admired by his staff, another ambassador despised, and still another ambassador addicted to playing practical jokes on his friends.

There are also some organizations involved, such as Black September terrorists, Exxon and Texaco, the World Wildlife Fund, the U. S. Customs Service, the San Antonio Zoo, a publication called Agapornis World, and the Organization of African Unity. Locales include Uganda, Cambodia, Mauritius, Diego Garcia (a place, not a person), Boston, San Antonio, and Washington.

It certainly sounds complicated, but it all comes together at the end, which would be unfair to signal in advance. If it sounds like a badly constructed novel, it is actually a work of what the author calls "factual fiction," that is, a mostly true story that has been embellished by passing it through the memory function of the human mind.

It is not to be taken seriously. Fortunately, in this free country, the USA, we have the First Amendment, as well as statutes of limitation.