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The Keepers of the Castle
by Paul Nicholas Weyland
The Keepers of the Castle is an adventure/romance story centering on the character of Peter Grayson Stuart and his career as an immigration enforcement officer. This historically based novel depicts the erosion of immigration law enforcement policy within the United States, a policy in rapid decline since the early 1970s.
The book highlights Peter’s early beginnings as a border patrol agent assigned to a desert outpost in Yuma, Arizona, his matriculation to a criminal investigator with U.S. Immigration in southern California, and ends with his heroic last stand as a supervisory special agent in Los Angeles, California.
Through the experiences of Peter and his colleagues in an embattled and beleaguered agency, the workings of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service are related. The book explores the hype of those seeking the “American Dream” and identifies those individuals that can truly be described as victims of the United States’ immigration policy.
Reviews:
An entertaining and provocative book.
"The Keepers of the Castle" is a fast paced description of real life in the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the last three decades of the 20th century. Its author, a former INS agent who was assigned to the Los Angeles Investigations Office for the majority of his career, writes with a mixture of truthful realism and literary license about the events that took place during his tenure with the U. S. Border Patrol and the Los Angeles District Investigation Branch. The novel depicts the fun, foibles, frustrations and failures of immigration officers as they went about their daily tasks. The author writes with a light touch and with a "twinkle" in his prose. There is humor, honor, devotion and tragedy mixed throughout its pages. The concluding chapter contains aspects that are both frustrating and inspirational. The ultimate ineffectiveness of Immigration enforcement is symbolized at the close of the book. At a deeper, more spiritual level, however, is the almost "Bunyonesque" reception that this book's Pilgrim receives at his journey's end, after a life of personal faith and devotion to duty. In the epilogue the author voices his explicit criticisms of our nation's leaders who are entrusted with ensuring that our borders are secure, and how they have failed over the decades to fulfill that trust. The book is easy to read, hard to put down and expresses the concerns and disappointments of many current and former Immigration enforcement officers.--Rick, Lake Cushman, WA
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