12 Presents

It is December 2019, and preparations for Barbados Prime Minister Jeffrey Motby’s annual Christmas reception have been thrown into disarray when a close and dear friend of his dies in a vehicular accident. One week later, another long-term friend dies by drowning. Motby becomes concerned. Was this coincidence, or were his two friends’ deaths connected? He is unable to comprehend their untimely deaths and his friendship with them going back over 30 years as Mango Club members.

While not strictly a national security matter, Motby quietly asks the Barbados Intelligence Bureau (BIB) to investigate the deaths to see what, if anything, connects either or both deaths to him, his family, or his government. The apparent suicide of a third friend makes the investigation official. BIB operatives and Barbados police officers review the three deaths in different Caribbean countries. Other Mango Club members' lives are also threatened.

Can the Chaos Theory help? Are the killings being made due to anger, envy, jealousy, revenge, or elements of all four of these factors? The Barbados crisis has the potential to ripple across the Caribbean Sea and beyond. Long-held personal secrets are exposed and friendships fray. Only hard work, cooperation, trust, ingenuity, and some luck help in solving the 12 Presents puzzle.

Hadford Howell was born in Barbados in 1956. He went to join his parents in England in 1968 before returning to Barbados in 1981. In UK and in Barbados, he worked both in the public service and in the private sector. Prior to his early retirement, he served for 33 years in a senior position at a diplomatic mission in Barbados.

He is continuing to fulfil a life-long ambition of writing novels. Hung Out to Dry is the follow-up to the successful publication of his first novel, Connect the Dots… Other novels in the Barbados Intelligence Bureau (BIB) series are in advanced stages of development. Hadford is a graduate of the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill Campus), has served on his local Church Council and School Boards and was awarded an MBE in 1998. He has been a Justice of the Peace for over 20 years. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of two Barbadian charities and is the appointed chairman of a national agency.