A Perfect Execution

Masterful storytelling and a winning mix of tenderness and morbidity hold the reader in thrall throughout this imaginative tale of retribution, compassion and redemption set largely in 1960s England. As a young man during WWII, in a village near Oxford, Jeremiah Bembo sees his life changed by German pilots flying overhead. An unsuccessful bombing unites him with his wife; the explosive crash of a reconnaissance plane takes out his eye; and the villagers' sadistic torture of a downed pilot supplies him with his eventual calling. To the chagrin of his passionate wife, Judith, and brash cousin Will, her former suitor, Jeremiah will take on a second identity as England's foremost hangman, the renowned and feared Solomon Straw. It's his obsession to bring order--in the form of technical skill and professional detachment--to the chaos of death. But Jeremiah's two worlds inevitably collide, offering him a chance to normalize and redeem his empty emotional life--with one final execution. Binding (In the Kingdom of Air) documents the logistics of hanging in fascinating detail, from mechanics to psychology to style, as he weaves a strangely poignant and suspenseful story. His evocative prose and sure-handed narrative bring this odd, old-fashioned yarn vividly to life. (July)