Customer Reviews

An Accidental American: A Novel (Mortalis)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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The War on Terror and its fallout will no doubt provide fodder for novel plots for years, if not decades, to come. AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN by Alex Carr takes a somewhat unique perspective on the War on Terror in general and the Iraqi war in particular, tying in the mistakes of the past with the disasters of the present in both international and personal affairs.

Nicole Blake is an ex-convict who is living a quiet, blissfully boring existence on a self-sustaining farm in the French Pyrenees. But her life is shattered when John Valsamis, a no-nonsense CIA agent, appears on her doorstep requesting her assistance in locating Rahim Ali. Blake's former lover from a lifetime ago, Ali appears to be involved with a terrorist cell that is planning a major incident, making it imperative that he be located.

Valsamis secures Blake's reluctant cooperation by playing upon the death of her mother --- murdered in a terrorist attack --- but Blake discovers all too soon that Valsamis has a history of treachery that stretches back in time and distance, even as his past has intersected with Blake's in ways she cannot even begin to imagine, let alone believe.

Betrayed and in mortal danger, the only person Blake can trust is an extremely unlikely and unwilling ally whose innocence is at once a virtue and a hindrance. Pursued by a hunter who seems able to find her at will, Blake not only must save herself and her unexpected companion, but also bring to an end the scheme in which she finds herself immersed, even as she is staggered by discoveries revealing that practically everything she knew about herself and her world is wrong.

AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN is reminiscent of the best work of John le Carre, informed with a world-weariness even as each page is infused with tension and danger as Blake, who gets deeper and deeper into a situation she does not understand, finds that those around her each have their own agendas. A page-turner that does not sacrifice literacy at the altar of expediency, it is a quietly explosive work that haunts and excites with each paragraph.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

The book is a mixed bag. It's tightly written, with multiple narrators and points of view - first-person and third-person - that switch frequently between characters. There are moments when the story is completely engrossing, but others where I found it hard to really care...and together, I think that's the novel's true weakness: the tight prose, increasing pace and constant back and forth between flashbacks, multiple points of view, multiple settings and multiple characters is just too much for 217 pages.

The story is enjoyable but ultimately, rather forgettable.

Nicole Blake should not be in France. She was invited to leave the country -- permanently -- after she finished serving her sentence at the Maison des Baumettes prison in Marseille. Nonetheless she lives with a rescued dog in an old farmhouse with a chicken coop in the Pyrenees, enjoying fresh eggs for breakfast while doing contract work for a document security firm (her expertise in forgery is the cause of her unwelcome status in France). Nicole's life is good until John Valsamis shows up with a photo of her former lover, Rahim Ali. Valsamis claims Rahim is assisting Saddam Hussein's cohorts with terrorist bombings. Valsamis, who works for the shadowy Dick Morrow, a member of a clandestine agency unknown to the CIA that is affiliated with the Defense Department, threatens to expose Nicole if she doesn't help him find Rahim. Off to Lisbon Nicole goes and the adventure begins.

The story plays out against the backdrop of the American invasion of Iraq and the search for elusive WMD's. From the first page, Carr creates a sense of foreboding that compels the reader's attention. Point of view shifts between Nicole's first person account and third person narration that follows other characters. From time to time Nicole fills in her backstory with memories of her childhood in Beirut, her mother's defiance of the city's violence, and the time she spent with Rahim in Lisbon (a time when she had "surrendered to the fetish of longing," one of the novel's many striking phrases).

An Accidental American is structured as an intricate puzzle, pieces falling into place as the story unfolds. Early passages gain meaning as later passages impart new information. The ending is unexpected. The structure commands the reader's attention without becoming Byzantine (as it tends to do in Carr's second novel, The Prince of Bagram Prison). At one point Nicole takes a dangerously stupid action that advances the plot but doesn't seem credible. For the most part, however, the story is plausible; in any event it is suspenseful. Carr's writing style is stark yet evocative -- the novel reads like serious literature in a way that most thrillers do not.

Carr paints a grim picture of American intelligence operations in the Mideast. Readers who supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq and those who revile unsympathetic portrayals of America's foreign policy will probably dislike An Accidental American. Readers who base their judgments on the quality of the writing rather than disagreement with the novel's political stance will probably enjoy it. Carr appended an "author's note" at the novel's end discussing the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut and the relationship between fact and fiction. Readers may or may not agree with her historical view but that should be (although it probably isn't) irrelevant to how they experience the novel. In her note, Carr writes that she struggled to create realistic characters "whose motives are often less than pure and always complicated." Many readers have no patience with characters who are not morally pure; they prefer simple characters who "know right from wrong" to characters with a more nuanced perspective. Those readers should probably avoid this novel. Readers who believe fiction should reflect the complexity of the world and its peoples are more likely to appreciate An Accidental American.

Alex Carr is the penname of Jenny Siler. The character of Dick Morrow connects this novel to The Prince of Bagram Prison. An Accidental American is the more successful of the two novels. I would give it 4 1/2 stars if Amazon offered that option.

The first time she sees John Valsamis in her French countryside driveway, he says nothing before driving away. He returns the next day at the same time saying he needs her help. He wants her to find her former lover Rahim Ali, who he claims is a terrorist recruited by the Islamic Armed revolution; he also shows her pictures of what the LAR has wrought on innocent people.

She agrees to help the DOD agent and journeys to Lisbon where he lives as a documents forger. Word gets around that Nicole Blake seeks Rahim Ali. When they finally meet, John shoots Rahim, but before he dies he directs Nicole to go to his office where she finds a suspicious looking document and its forgery. John plans to kill Nicole, but she eludes him while wondering what is going on and why evidence points toward Beirut just after the embassy bombings.

Readers who like dark thrillers in the tradition of Le Carre will enjoy AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN. Nicole is a gusty quirky heroine who wants to be like her father even though he gave her up to the police. Her years in prison strengthened her resolve. Espionage thriller fans will enjoy her cat and mouse battle with a clever killing machine.

Harriet Klausner