The Man Who Fell From the Sky

In 1970, a sniper’s bullet shocks the sleepy Cape Cod village of Osterville. David Gomes, a young reporter for the Cape & Islands Gazette covers the story, thinking his reporting might lead to a job with a major metropolitan newspaper. With protests against the Viet Nam war and the rise of the Black Panthers roiling the county, the murder investigation becomes deeply personal when Gomes, a Cape Verdean American, encounters the smoldering racial antagonism between the descendants of Cape Verde and African-Americans, as well as the deep-seated hatred toward all people of African descent among members of the white community. Gomes soon learns that investigating a murder can put him in the cross-hairs of a cold-blooded killer. It’s a dangerous place for the young reporter as he peels away layers of family history in his quest to discover the motive behind a savage act of murder, and comes to understand a complicated, contradictory history of his own people.“Bill Fletcher pulls together history and mystery to create an exciting and compelling story of race and revenge. It is truly an unexpected page turner.” ~Danny Glover “Fletcher has woven an engrossing story that harkens back to the forties while he connects the seventies and sprints forward to the 21st century. I feel this is just the beginning of a trove of fiction waiting to spring from this author’s deeply creative imagination.” ~ Herb Boyd, Neworld Review"Set amidst the rich cultural mix of Cape Verdean and Portuguese fishermen who came to the country as free men and consequentially fought being seen as the descendants of slaves, Fletcher lets a son of those men tell the story, a journalist, bent on relieving the suffering of one family he ends up finding the truth is more complicated, the villain a victim too of a bigger cruelty and devastation that stretched through the generations. ~Walter Mosley"...grabbed me in the first pages and kept me riveted with a tangled story of racism and identity based in a Cape Verdean community. David Gomes, a local Cape Verdean journalist, grabs onto a murder story that could propel him to fame or kill him. As he disentangles the complex web of relationships and resentments, Gomes runs headfirst into personal as well as family conflicts. Cape Verdeans are Portuguese though many of them have African ancestry. The tensions within this community as well as the racism targeting those of African descent are as compelling as the brutal murder that opens the story. A great read!" ~Ruth Needleman