RATING: A
SYNOPSIS: A highly entertaining geopolitical espionage story starring a Pakistani intelligence officer who must race to stop an attack against India that, if successful, could mean a nuclear war between India and Pakistan and the death of the woman he loves.
REVIEW: Great first effort by Duane Evans. First and most unusual about this book: the hero is a Pakistani Muslim. Probably why this book didn’t get picked up by a big New York publisher, which is a damned shame if you ask me. This book is thoughtful, thought-provoking, highly nuanced, and gives us a peek at the world beyond U.S. geopolitics. Evans made his hero, Pak intelligence officer Tarek Durani, a multifaceted character, with deep-seated emotional wounds, scars to his psyche, loads of experience under his belt, great instincts, high intelligence and ramrod-straight morals. And he sounds hot. The cast of characters are all as equally multidimensional. Evans explores all their motivations and foibles, careful not to paint anyone as a caricature.
North From Calcutta by Duane Evans
As for the story itself: this one is a realistic spy novel, and what I mean by that is that it has lots of thinking, talking, observing and careful planning within the pages of the book. I say it’s realistic because that’s what espionage is—a deliberate, unassuming and stealthy activity. Excuse me if I’m being a little soapboxish here but let me clear up a misconception about what spying is: spies don’t want to get noticed. When shots are fired and bombs explode, that’s the sign of a mission gone awry. And so this book has some really nice, authentic-feeling spying moments, like Tarek’s first trip to India. The backstopping of identity and other op-tech tasks are kept to a nice minimum. There’s no waxing rhapsodic about guns and weaponry (although I appreciate a good arms description as much as the next spy novel fan). All I’m saying is it’s there, but not excessively so. And the descriptions of the exotic locations are the Goldilocks version: not too big, not too small, but just right. And the plot is a scary-believable end-of-world scenario that leaves the heart pumping till the very end. Great stuff.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. If I were to come up with a few things I didn’t like, I’d say it was the clunky writing (too much head-hopping, which I wholly attribute to the fact that this is Evans’ first novel, and will undoubtedly improve over time), how it started out a tad too slowly, and the fact that he left me hanging with the ending (which is good for him, bad for me). Methinks he’s already busy with the sequel. Hope it comes out soon.
