A foreign correspondent's facade of emotional invincibility is shattered by the death of a colleague in journalist Hamilton's sharply etched, emotionally ferocious second novel (after Staircase of a Thousand Steps
). Thirty-two-year-old Caddie Blair swears by "measured closeness and a dose of dulled feelings," but everything changes after a stunning ambush on the way to an interview with a Lebanese crime king leaves her lover, news photographer Marcus Lancour, dead in her arms. Caddie retreats to her flat in Jerusalem to make sense of her personal involvement in Marcus's death, refusing to take a cushy desk job in New York and continuing to work both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A mysterious and alluring Russian professor, Alexander Goronsky, offers insider information about terrorist cell activity, feeding Caddie's need to seek (and witness) revenge. Hamilton's novel is as edgily paced as a thriller, with its jaded crew of international journalists, scenes of horrific violence by Jews and Arabs alike and explosive sex when Goronsky and Caddie come together to forget respective wounds. Hamilton no doubt enlists her own experience as a foreign correspondent to effectively flesh out the characters Caddie encounters, such as Jewish settlers Moshe and his blank wife, Sarah, and the Arab girl, Halima, who wants to bear witness. This is an affecting, viscerally charged work that offers no easy moral answers. Agent, Marly Rusoff.
(Nov.)
Forecast:
The timeliness of this novel and an extensive author tour should encourage strong media coverage.
