"He did a favour for a friend. Now it's about to catch up with him."

Step onto the gritty streets of 1960s Montréal, where the air is thick with Québécois and political intrigue lurks behind every shadow.

Known to the locals as L'Américain, our protagonist is an unassuming portrait artist, jazz aficionado, and science fiction writer living in quiet, self-imposed exile with his Italian muse and a charming orange tabby in the Bohemian enclave of De Lorimier.

This tranquillity is shattered after after his business partner and a devoted secretary are killed and everything around him spirals into chaos. As the stakes mount, the RCMP Security Service comes knocking, thugs from the Russian mob abduct his lover, and a mysterious British woman offers him one more reason to suspect everyone he knows. Complicating matters, a violent, KGB-linked faction of Québec nationalists want to silence him—permanently. Worse, he has no idea why.

Can his cold-blooded instincts outsmart his foes, rescue the love of his life, keep his cat fed and unravel a tangled web of international crimes to protect his adopted city against a violent revolution before it's too late?

Written against a backdrop of classic music, blackmail and international terrorism, Archibald Fitz crafts a gritty, unforgettable tapestry of cold-blooded treachery and edge-of-your-seat tension in this atmospheric novella leaving readers asking one question: How far would you go in the name of friendship?

Embouchure. An electrifying tale set in the Canadian theatre of the Cold War that will grip you from the first page and stick with you after the last bullet.