GLASS MOUNTAIN

A high-concept premise unfortunately obscures both characterization and theme in the latest from Koster, an American writer based in Panama who’s best known for his Latin American–based, science-fictional Tinieblas Trilogy (The Prince, The Dissertation, and Mandragon).

The narrator and protagonist is Carlos Fuertes, an adventurer-mercenary (and son of the assassinated former president of a fictional banana republic) who has survived “three tours of operating in North Vietnam” as a rescuer of downed pilots held prisoner behind enemy lines. As the story begins, Carlos (a.k.a. “Carl Marenga”) is well established in his present career: “stealing children” for estranged or divorced parents who’ve lost both custody of their offspring and patience with legal recourse. Koster grabs the reader’s attention early on (despite throwing out names of numerous secondary characters without immediately identifying them), characterizing Carlos as a thoughtful amoralist who’s nevertheless bedeviled by both erotic and menacing dreams, as well as hallucinations that evoke his action-filled past and seem to forecast his catastrophic future. Detailed accounts of his exploits as rescuer and assassin, and of his training as part of the “elite unit” (code-named “Golden Retriever”) specializing in rescue missions, are often quite interesting in themselves, but don’t really seem to lead anywhere. Focus is attained when, on a mission to kidnap an American embezzler who has found sanctuary in the fictional country of Atacalpa, Carlos reencounters a woman whose children he had abducted (acting for her ex-husband), realizes he loves her, and undertakes his own “mission” (dubbed “Glass Mountain,” after a fairy tale he’s loved since childhood) in an effort to reverse his criminal course and realize the best of those aforementioned dreams. A most curious novel, whose impressive density of detail clogs its workings and leaves its protagonist too hazily sketched to solicit much reader empathy.

Glass Mountain is an arduous climb. Still, it’s always good to know what Koster is up to, even if he’s never come close to matching the achievement of his Tinieblas novels.