Literary rating: ★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆½
“There are no heroes”, I said. “Just varying levels of evil.”
Having previously read and thoroughly enjoyed, the same author’s Sendero, picking up this entry, in the same setting and with an overlap of some characters, was a no-brainer. And I’m pleased to report, it was an equally enjoyable read, once again opening a window to a time and place in history, of which I was largely unaware. The heroine this time is Inez, a supporting character from Sendero. She’s a teenage revolutionary, who joined Peru’s Shining Path rebel group, after her father was killed by government soldiers. As we join her here, the now 16-year-old Inez has had enough and wants out. She’s told she can leave, if she completes one final mission: deliver a package to a contact in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires.
As ever, that “one final mission” does not go as planned. Her contact ends up dead, and she’s left with no resources, on the streets. A new friend tips her off to a job as a children’s nanny – though it’s in the family of one of Argentina’s generals, who represents virtually everything Shining Path detests, and who helped carry out mass disappearances when the military junta was in control. When her charge, Joey, is kidnapped, Inez becomes embroiled in the case, both as a suspect and as she seeks to find the perpetrators. Winning the general’s trust, she becomes a key player as the situation unfolds. But is Inez truly a player, or is she being played?
The quote at the top is an accurate summary of the book’s position. Whether neo-communist terrorist or crypto-fascist military, Tomlinson does a great job of depicting everyone as, above all, human. You may not agree with their actions, yet you can see why they took them – even those who kidnapped Joey. The one element I did find a bit hard to believe is the way a young nanny was allowed, at some points, to dictate the path of the investigation. Admittedly, her intelligence and her instincts were often dead-on, more so than the professionals. That’s credible enough, because her terrorist background meant she knows how they think. It’s just that in 80’s South America, where this is set, I doubt the opinions of teenage girls were highly respected.
Otherwise, however, this was another very solid work. It has a well-laid out plot which twisted until the very last page, where you finally find out what Inez’s package contained. Though she is not exactly Atomic Blonde, our heroine has her occasional moments. These are perhaps summed up best in this line, as she heads out to face Joey’s kidnappers: “With twenty minutes to go, I headed out into a beautiful late-summer evening in Buenos Aires, with twenty-five thousand dollars in a plastic shopping bag and a small pistol down my bra.” The matter-of-fact way in which Inez describes this, tells you all you need to know about her ability to handle any situation. If you like a heroine who remains cool under pressure, this is the perfect read.
Author: Max Tomlinson
Publisher: Sendero Press, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
A stand-alone book in the Sendero universe.