Despite the flaws, well worth reading—Fesperman’s empathy for his protagonists, struggling to do the right thing, is...
Middle East intrigue swirls around an aid worker forced into a clandestine post-retirement mission—more classy suspense from Fesperman (The Prisoner of Guantánamo, 2006, etc.).
Freeman Lockhart and his wife Mila have paid their dues. The two UN aid workers (he’s American, she’s Bosnian Serb) met during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992, then moved on to equally stressful assignments in Rwanda and Tanzania. Now they’re retiring to their new home on a Greek island, but their first night is interrupted by three spooks (Freeman assumes they’re CIA). They take Freeman to a nearby empty villa. They want him to go to Amman, Jordan, to check out a former colleague, Omar al-Baroody, a Palestinian. Omar has his own operation now, raising money for a hospital. But is it a front? Freeman’s role will be to follow the money trail. He agrees in an effort to protect his wife: In Tanzania, Mila inadvertently caused a bloodbath, and Freeman wants desperately to protect her from this knowledge, but unless he plays ball, the spooks will enlighten her. In Amman he finds a welcoming Omar (Freeman will be his director of programs) but bitter rivalries among his cohorts. Fesperman, who has traveled widely, provides details with an insider’s mastery: The gritty Bakaa refugee camp, a run-in with Jordan’s own spy outfit and hairy side trips to Athens and Jerusalem are all nailed to perfection. Unfortunately, there is a parallel, much less convincing, story line involving a Palestinian-American married couple in suburban Washington. Their daughter has died, a victim of post-9/11 Arab profiling, and the father, a top surgeon, is plotting a spectacular revenge. Omar and Freeman’s handlers recede into the background as the surgeon’s wife, Aliyah, arrives in Amman, pursuing her own agenda. To add to the confusion, bombs are detonated by an unidentified group at three Amman hotels, killing scores. The hokey climax has Freeman confronting the surgeon in Washington.
Despite the flaws, well worth reading—Fesperman’s empathy for his protagonists, struggling to do the right thing, is impressive.Pub Date: March 5, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-4467-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
Jones hits his stride with a smart story of social commentary—it’s scary good.
A violent tale of vengeance, justice, and generational trauma from a prolific horror tinkerer.
Jones (Mapping the Interior, 2017, etc.) delivers a thought-provoking trip to the edge of your seat in this rural creature feature. Four young Blackfeet men ignore the hunting boundaries of their community and fire into an elk herd on land reserved for the elders, but one elk proves unnaturally hard to kill. Years later, they’re forced to answer for their act of selfish violence, setting into motion a supernatural hunt in which predator becomes prey. The plot meanders ever forward, stopping and starting as it vies for primacy with the characters. As Jones makes his bloody way through the character rotation, he indulges in reflections on rural life, community expectations, and family, among other things, but never gets lost in the weeds. From the beer bottles decorating fences to free-throw practice on the old concrete pad in the cold, the Rez and its silent beauty establishes itself as an important character in the story, and one that each of the other characters must reckon with before the end. Horror’s genre conventions are more than satisfied, often in ways that surprise or subvert expectations; fans will grin when they come across clever nods and homages sprinkled throughout that never feel heavy-handed or too cute. While the minimalist prose propels the narrative, it also serves to establish an eerie tone of detachment that mirrors the characters’ own questions about what it means to live distinctly Native lives in today's world—a world that obscures the line between what is traditional and what is contemporary. Form and content strike a delicate balance in this work, allowing Jones to revel in his distinctive voice, which has always lingered, quiet and disturbing, in the stark backcountry of the Rez.
Jones hits his stride with a smart story of social commentary—it’s scary good.Pub Date: July 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3645-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Saga/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsavory, unrepentant characters interspersed in a plot that’s as predictable as it is far-fetched make for an uninspiring...
A young lawyer with secrets of her own finds that her new husband is about as trustworthy as the murderer she’s representing on appeal.
Lily Macdonald, 25, thought her new life with Ed, a graphic designer with aspirations to paint full time, would be grand. She’s a newly minted solicitor in London, two months into a new marriage, with a shiny new case: the appeal of Joe Thomas, convicted of murdering his girlfriend by shoving her in a scalding bath. Joe and Lily’s initial conversations smack of cut-rate Hannibal and Clarice Starling scenes, with none of Thomas Harris’ nuance of character. In fact, none of Corry’s characters in her disappointing U.S. debut have much in the way of nuance; only a general sheen of unpleasantness that settles over every interaction, be it personal or professional. Besides Lily and Ed and their less-than-blissful marriage, Corry introduces their neighbors across the hall, Italian immigrant Francesca Cavoletti and her 9-year-old daughter, Carla, who catches Ed’s eye as the perfect artistic subject. While Francesca spends time with a “special friend,” Carla hangs out with the Macdonalds while Lily pursues Joe’s appeal and wrestles with her childhood demons, which neatly connect to the case. A somewhat preposterous fast-forward finds the characters 12 years older but no wiser: Lily and Ed have a son with Asperger’s; Carla is a knockout law student back from Italy; and Joe is still causing trouble from the sidelines. New romantic liaisons are formed, as are legal ones, none of which will surprise the careful reader.
Unsavory, unrepentant characters interspersed in a plot that’s as predictable as it is far-fetched make for an uninspiring read.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2095-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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