James LePore’s debut novel A WORLD I NEVER MADE has a lot going for it — so much, in fact, that at times it feels like a tossed-off work of a more seasoned author. And if it doesn’t knock your socks off, it’s not from lack of trying.
American civil engineer Pat Nolan is summoned to Paris in the early days of 2004 to claim the body of his daughter, Megan, who has committed suicide. Although estranged for several years, Pat — a widower since his daughter’s birth — is the only family the dead girl has. But upon viewing the body, he immediately confirms the silent suspicions he’s held since first reading Megan’s suicide note: that the body he is viewing is not his daughter's.
Convinced that she is alive and in serious danger, Pat sets off to find those people who might have known Megan and can lead him to her. He is accompanied by Paris police detective Catherine Laurence, a beautiful but stoic and lonely widower herself. Their search takes them across France and into the Czech Republic.
Interspersed into this narrative are flashbacks from a year earlier, where we learn about Megan and the events leading to the false suicide. A journalist who recently abandoned trivial topics and has focused on investigating the families of Middle Eastern terrorists, Megan has made a very comfortable life for herself mainly by seducing wealthy men and allowing them to support her expensive tastes.
While researching in Morocco, she meets Abdel Lahani, a successful Saudi businessman who soon becomes her latest conquest. But soon, Megan discovers that Lahani’s money has financed terrorist bombings and similar bloody operations. Fearful for her life, especially after she learns she is pregnant, Megan secretly flees Morocco with the aid of band of faithful gypsies.
Meanwhile, Pat and Catherine’s actions are monitored by French police and international intelligence agents, all of whom believe Megan to be a terrorist. But complicating the matter are a group of Arab thugs following Pat and Catherine, and killing those who have helped them in their search for Pat’s daughter.
Obviously LePore has crafted a story that, while taking place some four or five years ago, is topical and relevant. Also to his credit are his characterizations, which are mostly strong and believable. So what’s missing? Well, for the most part, it’s that intangible element that pushes us to read just a few more pages after a chapter has ended. In other words, suspense.
LePore relies too often on the technique of characters recapping action and events that have already happened. This results in an odd, arm's-length distance between the reader and his characters, even when he strives for us to know and understand them.
Then, too, we already know that Catherine and Pat will fall deeply in love long before LePore allows it to happen. They are so obviously the missing parts of each other that it’s a wonder it takes so long for them to recognize it themselves.
Ironically, it might have helped if LePore has gone for the throat more than the head. The murders that follow Pat and Catherine, for example, have the ability to shock, but LePore’s descriptions merely disturb. So what pulls us to the concluding pages is the mild enjoyment of his prose, rather than the irresistible urge to find out what happens next.
And this would ordinarily be the kiss of death for “a novel of suspense.” But, again, it’s LePore’s avoidance of the usual first novel self-indulgences that make him an author to follow in the coming years. Let’s hope, however, that he learns how to impress us with a little less literary pretense and a bit more visceral cliffhangers in his next work. —Alan Cranis
Buy it at Amazon.
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