A powerful, provocative, and politically charged fictionalized memoir

Mikel lives with his wife and two children in Costur, an idyllic Spanish town surrounded by hills. He has a job selling candy, but Mikel is a dreamer, not a businessman, and money is tight. What’s more, the ordinariness of smalltown life is preventing him from fulfilling a life-long dream: to become a writer.

Seeking both drama and financial security, Mikel takes a job as a bodyguard. His family is soon uprooted to the Basque Country, where Mikel is charged with protecting politicians from the armed separatist group ETA. It is a job that provides drama worthy of the page—but only at the cost of fear, uncertainty, and family breakdown.

In Mikel, author Mark Bellido draws on his own experiences to create a powerful and provocative story about a man who risks everything in the pursuit of a dream.