Barry Davis

Silence The Soul Barry Davis

In a distant jungle, a man screams. Terrorists are torturing him in the jungles of Columbia. He is an American in the service of his country, and we should feel sympathy. Or should we? Sam Udeen's previous roles were not so noble - admitted 'killer of children' while in the employ of Philadelphia crime kingpin Sweets Maybrey and contract killer for various crime lords. Even his work with the government is suspect, his employment contingent upon his ability to perform the morally questionable without asking questions. Most would say that Sam, with blood up to his elbows, is receiving his just deserts. Years after the torture, Sam is suffering mentally, homeless, sick, and no longer in service to the CIA. He is adrift until circumstances bring him in contact with a figure from his past - a millionaire megachurch leader nicknamed Preacher Boy. Preacher Boy hires Sam to protect, of all things, a collection of children. The holy man has built an urban oasis in Philly with the self-important nickname of The Community, where he is growing the so-called New Black race from children discarded by the ghetto. But The Community has its enemies, hard men who will only be defeated by one of their kind. Will a broken Sam Udeen, whose initial instinct is to betray the reverend and his children, overcome both his mental challenges and darkest impulses to do good? It would be so easy, comforting even, for Sam to succumb to the darkness in his soul. Destroying the reverend's hopes and dreams for their race? No problem. Sam Udeen has done far worse. Sam, and The Community, have one asset: his wife, Bennett. A former Green Beret newly released from Leavenworth, she is determined to save her man while not allowing him to fail the children. Silence the Soul is an urban thriller with a subtext involving the issues of poverty and race in modern America. It is a book inspired by and inhabiting the criminal universe of Sweets Maybrey, the main protagonist from the widely read novels Sweets, Young, Gifted and Bad, and Rose of the Badlands. Sometimes we don't get to choose our saviors. Sometimes men like Sam Udeen are chosen for us.