Albert de Moraes

Albert de Morais (Antonio Alberto de Morais Cardoso) or Tony Cardoso, is a former journalist and director of print, radio and television media. Of French and Portuguese nationality, born in 1955 in Alijó, Portugal, he is the father of two children: Daniel (1982) and Hugo (2003).

Retired since 2016, he devoted himself to writing and published his first novel the same year: "Soif de Liberté", "Sede de Liberdade" in Portuguese (Editions Douro). The French version was reissued in 2019 by Editions Encre Rouge.

Passionate about literature, he participated in the creation of a publishing company with the aim, in particular, of publishing unknown authors.

“Murders in Frequency Modulation” is his second novel, part of the Douro collection and also published by Encre Rouge.


In the euphoria of the development of free radio in the 1980s, a thirty-year-old man persisted in submitting an application for an FM radio station in Paris, on behalf of the community he wished to represent.

Between a passionate love affair, internal conflicts, before and after obtaining the broadcasting license, suspicions of collusion involving members and officials of the regulatory authority with well-known personalities, the fine bloodhounds of the judicial police of 36 quai des Orfèvres, then the DGSE, are busy discovering the perpetrator(s) of the murders that follow one another in this environment.

Jacques Whitehead, agent britannique du MI6, en fin de carrière, habite à Los Angeles depuis 30 ans.

Il vient d'écrire un roman consacré à son ami Adrien Mesquita, ex-journaliste et romancier célèbre.

Il a connu les principaux personnages, d'abord en Algérie, à la fin de l’année 1978, l’une de ses premières missions à l’étranger, lors du décès du président Houari Boumediene, puis en Europe, où il rencontre les autres, tous ceux qui avaient eu un rôle important dans cette histoire.

En cet après-midi du 21 octobre 2007, il attend impatiemment son éditeur. Celui-ci doit lui apporter une centaine d’exemplaires du livre et il compte les offrir ce soir à son ami, qui vient de partir en voiture pour rejoindre son épouse, à Ensenada, au Mexique.

C’est alors que Jacques apprend la terrible nouvelle : Adrien a traversé la frontière à Tijuana à 17H00 et plus personne ne l’a revu depuis.

Seul enfant d’une famille aisée vivant à Lisbonne, Adrien intègre un mouvement contestataire à la dictature tandis que son père profite de celle-ci pour s’enrichir en travaillant pour le gouvernement et en faisant des affaires en Angola.

Après l’anniversaire de ses 18 ans, il décide de partir en France rejoindre les mouvements antifascistes portugais.

Jacques Whitehead, a late-career British MI6 special agent, had lived in Los Angeles for 30 years.

He had recently completed a book about part of the life story of his friend Adriano Mesquita, a former journalist and famous writer.

He had met the main characters in the plot, first in Algeria, at the end of 1978, during one of his first missions abroad, shortly after the death of President Houari Boumediene, and later in Europe, where he met and interviewed the others.

On that afternoon of October 21, 2007, he was anxiously waiting at home for the publisher who was supposed to deliver a hundred copies of the book he wanted to give to his friend that same evening. It was one of the surprises for Adriano who, in the meantime, had left for Ensenada, Mexico where his wife was waiting for him to celebrate another wedding anniversary.

It was then that Jacques received the terrible news: Adriano had crossed the Tijuana border at 5 pm and no one had seen him since.

The only son of a wealthy family from Lisbon, Adriano had been part of a movement to reflect against the dictatorship while his father took advantage of it and his proximity to political power to enrich himself, collaborating with the government and managing profitable businesses in Angola.

After turning 18, he decided not to do military service and fled to France where he hoped to join the Portuguese anti-fascist groups.