The Tzer Island book blog features book reviews written by TChris, the blog's founder.  I hope the blog will help readers discover good books and avoid bad books.  I am a reader, not a book publicist.  This blog does not exist to promote particular books, authors, or publishers.  I therefore do not participate in "virtual book tours" or conduct author interviews.  You will find no contests or giveaways here.

The blog's nonexclusive focus is on literary/mainstream fiction, thriller/crime/spy novels, and science fiction.  While the reviews cover books old and new, in and out of print, the blog does try to direct attention to books that have been recently published.  Reviews of new (or newly reprinted) books generally appear every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  Reviews of older books appear on occasional weekends.  Readers are invited and encouraged to comment.  See About Tzer Island for more information about this blog, its categorization of reviews, and its rating system.

Entries in Alex Carr (2)

Wednesday
Jan262011

An Accidental American by Alex Carr

Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks on April 17, 2007

Nicole Blake should not be in France. She was invited to leave the country -- permanently -- after she finished serving her sentence at the Maison des Baumettes prison in Marseille. Nonetheless she lives with a rescued dog in an old farmhouse with a chicken coop in the Pyrenees, enjoying fresh eggs for breakfast while doing contract work for a document security firm (her expertise in forgery is the cause of her unwelcome status in France). Nicole's life is good until John Valsamis shows up with a photo of her former lover, Rahim Ali. Valsamis claims Rahim is assisting Saddam Hussein's cohorts with terrorist bombings. Valsamis, who works for the shadowy Dick Morrow, a member of a clandestine agency unknown to the CIA that is affiliated with the Defense Department, threatens to expose Nicole if she doesn't help him find Rahim. Off to Lisbon Nicole goes and the adventure begins.

The story plays out against the backdrop of the American invasion of Iraq and the search for elusive WMD's. From the first page, Carr creates a sense of foreboding that compels the reader's attention. Point of view shifts between Nicole's first person account and third person narration that follows other characters. From time to time Nicole fills in her backstory with memories of her childhood in Beirut, her mother's defiance of the city's violence, and the time she spent with Rahim in Lisbon (a time when she had "surrendered to the fetish of longing," one of the novel's many striking phrases).

An Accidental American is structured as an intricate puzzle, pieces falling into place as the story unfolds. Early passages gain meaning as later passages impart new information. The ending is unexpected. The structure commands the reader's attention without becoming Byzantine (as it tends to do in Carr's second novel, The Prince of Bagram Prison). At one point Nicole takes a dangerously stupid action that advances the plot but doesn't seem credible. For the most part, however, the story is plausible; in any event it is suspenseful. Carr's writing style is stark yet evocative -- the novel reads like serious literature in a way that most thrillers do not.

Carr paints a grim picture of American intelligence operations in the Mideast. Readers who supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq and those who revile unsympathetic portrayals of America's foreign policy will probably dislike An Accidental American. Readers who base their judgments on the quality of the writing rather than disagreement with the novel's political stance will probably enjoy it. Carr appended an "author's note" at the novel's end discussing the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut and the relationship between fact and fiction. Readers may or may not agree with her historical view but that should be (although it probably isn't) irrelevant to how they experience the novel. In her note, Carr writes that she struggled to create realistic characters "whose motives are often less than pure and always complicated." Many readers have no patience with characters who are not morally pure; they prefer simple characters who "know right from wrong" to characters with a more nuanced perspective. Those readers should probably avoid this novel. Readers who believe fiction should reflect the complexity of the world and its peoples are more likely to appreciate An Accidental American.

Alex Carr is the penname of Jenny Siler. The character of Dick Morrow connects this novel to The Prince of Bagram Prison. An Accidental American is the more successful of the two novels.

RECOMMENDED

Wednesday
Jan052011

The Prince of Bagram Prison by Alex Carr

Published by Random House Trade Paperbacks on March 11, 2008

Jamal, a 15 year old detainee at Bagram, agrees to inform for the CIA and is relocated to Spain, where his handler, Harry Comfort, is close to retirement. Harry's successor pushes Jamal for information and Jamal responds by inventing a story about seeing a man from Bagram in Madrid. This sets off a flurry of killings. Jamal's Army interrogator, Kat, is sent to Casablanca with an ex-CIA chief to find Jamal after he disappears. The CIA wants to kill Jamal and Kat doesn't want that to happen. There's a whole lot more going on, involving a dead detainee and a coverup of nefarious American shenanigans, but describing it here would risk spoiling the surprises.

Although this is an intelligent, crisply written thriller that creates a strong sense of place, the motivations for the various actions taken by the characters aren't always clear and the plot at times gets a bit muddled. Kat is a reasonably full character but most of the others (particularly the males) are stock military/spook types. A romantic entanglement felt out of place, as if it had been added to move the plot along--it didn't feel real. The facts that are being covered up seemed a little far-fetched and the ending seemed contrived. In short, I liked the writing style more than the story or the characters. I'm encouraged to try her other novels (the author, Jenny Siler, wrote this one under a pen name). The Prince of Bagram Prison is a worthy effort that comes close to succeeding as a solid novel, but doesn't quite get there.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS