Mike Guest

The Aggrieved Parties Mike Guest

The Aggrieved Parties is a tale of revenge. Of deception. Of betrayal. Of humiliation. But also... of trust. Everybody has a grievance. Phany Som has waited 40 years to address hers. After witnessing her beloved father's humiliation at the hands of the Khmer Rouge as a small child in Cambodia in 1975, Phany is suddenly presented with an opportunity to exact revenge against the perpetrators. Now a highly educated dual U. S.-Cambodian citizen, Phany concocts a plot that spans three nations, Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia, and ultimately transforms the lives of a wide range of multi-national, multi-identity characters: a narcissistic Taiwanese detective, a shady multi-lingual American 'human relocator', a gay Vietnamese restoration expert with something to prove, an impoverished Cambodian villager hoping for a better life for his children, an Australian expat in Japan whose dark secret is exposed, a Japanese career woman obsessed with her husband's possible infidelity, and an awkward Japanese assistant investigator suffering from debilitating mental issues. The Aggrieved Parties combines action, adventure, human drama, history, psychology, philosophy, and travel as Phany weaves her plot, the full extent of which no one, even Phany herself, is aware and yet ends up enveloping them all.