Tangled Web UK Review May 2007
An Accidental American by
Alex Carr
hbk out March 07
Published by Orion
at £18.99
An interesting book, and in spite of the title and the Montana-born
authoress, is only obliquely about the US, in that its action is based in
France and Lisbon, with many flashbacks to the Lebanon.
Though a 'chase thriller' it has a high political content, in that in a
lengthy postcript, the author confirms that the impetus for the book was
the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut, which wiped out the
whole of the CIA's Middle East contingent.
The central figure is Nicole Blake, a woman in her thirties who is the
'accidental American', as her Lebanese mother entered her transient
father's nationality as that when she gave birth in Paris.
Nicole became an accomplished forger and has suffered six years in a
harsh French prison for her work on credit cards and the like. Now
released, she has settled in an old farmhouse near the Pyrenees and
makes a legitimate living working for a London security document
company.
Her distant past catches up with her when a sinister American turns up to
show her a 'Most Wanted' Interpol notice about Rahim Ali, a Moroccan
who was once her lover when she lived in Lisbon. The CIA man claims
that Rahim is involved in a Muslim terrorist plan of horrific proportions
and blackmails her into finding him, on pain of his arranging for her to be
deported from France. She returns to Portugal and finds Rahim in time to
see him shot dead by her visitor.
An exciting story is leavened by a great deal of flashback to Nicole's
past, especially her family life in the Lebanon. There is a lot of hard
information about the political turmoil of the last couple of decades in the
Levant, including the endless interference of the US in the affairs of that
region. However, this does not slow down the pace of the story, which
eventually exposes a major scam attempt, relating to invasion of Iraq.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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