A bizarre kidnapping leads to a series of startling revelations for a successful businessman in Mendelsohn's latest (after The Parting Gift, etc.)—a murky, ponderous affair that begins when protagonist Peter Gordon wakes up to find himself held captive in a Jamaican mansion, the identity of his captors unknown. What follows is an extended flashback in which Gordon examines his past, trying to figure out who is holding him hostage. The son of a baron, he grows up in Romania in the 1940s and '50s, where he joins the army as Peter Gordonitzu and deals on the black market. Gordon then emigrates to England to start a business, but a problematic relationship with his secretary, Annie, whom he marries after a brief but passionate affair, poisons his life there. Annie's subsequent breakdowns eventually lands her in a clinic, and her bitterness about Gordon's emotional aloofness leads him into a series of enjoyable but unfulfilling affairs. Push comes to shove when Gordon learns of Annie's apparent suicide, but the event that really changes his life occurs when his gay uncle's lover, a friend of Annie's nicknamed Sunshine, reveals to him the hell endured by Gordon's family when the Nazis entered Romania at the start of WWII. Mendelsohn's initial kidnapping premise is riveting, but much of the narrative that follows is disjointed and slow moving. The uneven chapters dealing with Gordon's romantic life have some effective moments, but they can't make up for the lackluster, obscure passages dealing with his origins in Romania. The result is a disappointing novel that never lives up to a promising plot premise. (May 1)
