Shadow of the Fathers is my newest novel. Shadow explores the ambivalent relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. The book is based on a true incident that took place in Puerto Rico when a doctor from the Rockefeller Institute claimed he had killed eight of his Puerto Ricans patients to help exterminate what he called the “degenerate” population there. The novel, written as a suspense mystery, looks into the U.S.-Puerto Rico political arrangement, as well as U.S. colonialism from the Cold War to Vietnam to Vieques. Besides the fictional characters, such historical figures as Pedro Albizu Campos, J. Edgar Hoover, Fidel Castro ad Francisco Franco influence the action in the novel.
by Robert Friedman 