Caught up "among spies, gun runners, murderers, maniacs, and revolutionaries," Frank Holliwell is clearly the protagonist of A Flag for Sunrise; his character, however, is delicately interwoven with those of Father Egan, the rector of the mission Holliwell is sent to investigate, his assistant, the morally earnest Sister Justine, and the erratic nomad Pablo Tabor, a Coast Guard deserter who drifts into the turmoil in Tecan by hypothetical accident. Similar to the protagonists in Stone's earlier fiction, Holliwell is alcoholic, self-destructive, and amoral. Anthropologist by profession and former free-lance CIA agent by design, Holliwell apparently enjoys flirtation with danger.

Characteristic of the fictional hero-adventurer, Holliwell is drawn to Tecan by the scent of excitement and intrigue.

Obsessed with the spiritual need to discover self, Holliwell ends his journey with a ritualistic confrontation with his own mortality.

Bristling with religious overtones, the novel serves as a platform for the...