With terrorism threats still haunting the daily headlines, thriller author Stephen White’s THE SIEGE hits us where we live. It is, at its most basic, a story about a hostage standoff. But it follows no know pattern nor known set of rules, so right from its opening pages, it has its main characters — and us readers — by the throat.
At the campus of Yale University, police are alerted that a group of students are being held against their will inside the tomb-like building of the Book and Snake, one of the secret societies of the Ivy League institution. Before long, a young man emerges from the building with a bomb strapped to his waist. He announces an immediate demand from his captor, and that he will die in three minutes. The police — and especially their hostage negotiator — respond by the book. But they discover that the hostage holder is both true to his word, and deadly accurate.
The federal government’s armed forces and intelligence agencies immediately surround the area and take control of the situation. Among them is FBI agent Christopher Poe and CIA analyst Deirdre Drake. She has a husband back home, but she and Poe carry on a hurried affair whenever their assignments bring them together.
Also involved is Sam Purdy, a suspended Boulder, Colo. police detective who is distantly related to one of the students held hostage. Eventually, and inevitably, he crosses paths with Poe and Deirdre, and they challenge each other’s authority and experience while trying to work on the same side.
White takes several chances with the structure of his narrative. These include shifting the perspective back and forth between Purdy’s first-person narration and the third-person scope of Poe, Deirdre and several other instrumental personnel. Then, too, critical events are repeated as they are experienced by the characters.
Amazingly, these risks pay off and create a sort of cinematic feel to the story. This, along with the unending complexities and inventiveness of the plot, results in an ambience of palpable tension and suspense that carries us through every instance of backstory and exposition. Rarely has almost 400 pages flowed so fast.
Through it all, White drives home the point — especially through Purdy’s personal observations — of how terrorist attacks expose our vulnerabilities, even in the face of increasing security procedures and restrictions. THE SIEGE is the kind of entertainment that provokes thought and speculation not easily dismissed. It’s likely to challenge your conclusions about terrorism and covert government operations. If not, the tension alone will undoubtedly stay with you long after the final chapter.
Whatever the case, you should add it to your “must read” list. —Alan Cranis
