Herrin explores an everyman's quest for retribution for overwhelming political violence in his latest novel (after The Lies Boys Tell
; The Unwritten Chronicles of Robert E. Lee
). Long considered a man of dreamy inaction by his ex-wife, 48-year-old Kentuckian Ben Williamson undergoes a sea change when he travels to Madrid to understand the death of his daughter Michelle, killed three years earlier in a Basque separatist terrorist act while she was studying abroad. Slipping into Madrid's lively street life to perform a kind of cultural surveillance, Ben also fixates on news of a Basque political leader, a man who symbolizes the clannish pride driving the acts of separatist brutality. Chapters alternate between Ben's eventual journey into the Basque countryside and his surviving college-age daughter Annie's search to find and stop her father before he takes drastic action. The shifting narrative creates a sense of inevitability that culminates in a confrontation with an unexpected and emotionally satisfying outcome that stays true to the scar of terrorism. In this spare book, Herrin deftly tackles a topical subject at a geographical remove from American soil for a subtle, suspenseful treatment of a personal response to terrorism. (Nov.)
