title: The Syncopated Heart
author: Keeling, Douglas J.
description: Michael McCann didn't plan to be riding around in the back of a French Police Inspector's car searching for terrorists in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. He didn't expect to fall in love with a German detective's wife who would, by chance, be in exactly the wrong spot during the subsequent terrorist attacks on Paris in November of 2015. It was not on his agenda to suffer congestive heart failure and end up in a French hospital undergoing life-saving surgery. It certainly wasn't his intention to remain in France indefinitely, leaving behind his Portland, Oregon, law practice, family, and life. In fact, he hadn't planned to visit Paris at all during his European sabbatical from his stressful career, but it is there that he finds himself wrestling with personal, romantic, family, health and professional issues as he confronts life-and-death circumstances completely at odds with his original tourist agenda in the City of Light.