Pegge Mackiernan was a young widow and single mother of twins working as Vice Consul in the American Embassy in Pakistan in 1951. Her husband had been an undercover CIA agent who was mercilessly killed by Tibetan border guards while evacuating newly Communist China.

    In her work at the Embassy, she met John Hlavacek. A passionate international reporter with humble Midwestern values, John convinced Pegge to bring her children to India. They fell in love and wed in 1952, adding three more children of their own.

    Pegge’s life and career were nothing if not spontaneous, seemingly weaved by fate’s colorful loom. Her prose style of writing is unmistakable, and transports the reader back in time, allowing them to understand and experience life as she knew it more than half a century ago.