Los Angelinos Nick Sperry and girlfriend Sarah Gustafsson flee the threat of post-9/11 terrorist attacks and their stagnant lives for the Yucatán jungle in Nicholson's second novel, a suspenseful geopolitical psychodrama (after The Tribes of Palos Verdes
). Sarah, a statuesque freelance graphic designer, and Nick, an alcoholic failed writer wrestling with memories of his abusive, deceased father and an unwritten antiwar novel, head to Mexico by car, reluctant to fly while terrorist warnings are high. At the tonier resorts, Europeans and Mexican natives who object to the impending war in Iraq accost Nick and Sarah with anti-American taunts, so the pair travel hundreds of miles further south than they intended, to the tiny town of Esmeralda in the heart of the Yucatán's Caribbean side. They check into the Gasthaus Esmeralda, a walled-in Swiss Family Robinson–style chalet owned by creepy German expatriates Karl and Cordula Von Tollman. Nicholson builds the psychological tension brick by brick and brings the seedy, pathetic Gasthaus Esmeralda to itchy, smelly, sweaty life as the foursome face off in a downward spiral of suspicion and drug-related intrigue. Though chiaroscuro of dark doings juxtaposed against the white heat of the jungle makes for an atmospheric read, the flat ending falls a bit short of the novel's promise. Agent, Betsy Amster. (June)
