The Invisible World by
John Smolens
hbk out December 02
Published by Hodder
at £18.99
Written by a Professor of English at an American university, this is almost a
conspiracy book, the conspiracy being that well-worn argument about who
killed Kennedy. However, this story gives that a new twist, in that the first-
person raconteur, Sam Adams, suspects that his father did it.
A Boston journalist, now virtually out of work, Sam had written a book
setting out his theory that his dad was the culprit. This was later rubbished
by an investigation run by a local politician and Sam was discredited, though
it later appears that this was a set-up to whitewash the administration.
Father was absent for most of Sam's life 'working for the government',
which he suspects was being a hit man for the CIA or some even more
secretive establishment agency.
The father virtually abandoned his wife, leaving her to bring up two
children, the other being a weird girl, Abigail, who died of drugs. The story
starts when the mother dies and father re-appears to make off with her ashes,
starting Sam on a vengeful hunt for him. Sam and his reporter girl-friend
Petra get stalked by several groups of mysterious intruders and the rest of the
story you'll have to read for yourself.
As one might expect from an English professor, the writing is impeccable,
but I found the book hard going. At least half the text is flash-back and it
was often difficult to know whether you were in the present or the past, so
rapid were the temporal changes. Much of it seemed irrelevant to the story-
line and I think the book would have benefited considerably by being cut by
at least a third. Perhaps because of the high price of books these days,
writers and publishers feel that the readers need their money's-worth, so a
hundred-thousand words is the current minimum. Yet Christie and Simenon
and a legion of others used to write great books at forty-fifty thousand and
many were much the better for it.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
