At the end of each book, the boys report to Hitchcock, and sometimes give him a memento of their case.

Maalouf hopes that one day he can call all of the Middle East his homeland, and that his grandson will find his book a strange memento of a time when these arguments had to be put forward.

Why reject the improvements that human ingenuity has provided to us? I have an old fountain pen that belonged to my grandmother it s a nice memento of her, but I wouldn t dream of using it to write this column.