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She's been a criminal almost her entire life. As a child, Allie Kerry helped her father and his cohorts as they smuggled drugs or guns or other products around the Florida Keys. As an adult, she1s a recovering drug addict who has continued in the same line of work, using a car instead of a boat. She is a driver of "goods unknown". Her contact tells her where to go and when, no questions asked about what she's transporting. The idea of living the American dream with the white picket fence and 2.4 kids is as repellant to her as the thought of being abducted by aliens. The job she's on now is a puzzler. It goes wrong almost from the start. She's supposed to meet someone in Seattle who is going to give her the goods. She does so, but the meet is interrupted and violence ensues. From that point on, she's on the run. When she breaks the rules and looks at what was handed over, she finds it's a computer disk. Working with a longtime friend, they are able to look at the contents and find something that looks like a game and information having to do with Viet Nam events of years ago. Someone is intent on obtaining the disk. Even though she's in a remote location, the pursuers find her; and she knows that she's been betrayed. That means some serious pedal to the metal. Riding with Allie is a non-stop adventure. She's bold and brash, intelligent and intuitive, and can kick butt with the best of them. Her goal is to get back to Florida and uncover the betrayer as well as to put her father's ashes to rest, but everyone is on the lookout for her. The deaths that occurred during the meet have made the national news, and she1s a top 10 fugitive. I found that somewhat implausible; it didn't seem to me that two deaths would warrant that kind of national news coverage. As much as I enjoyed the tough girl character of Allie and the high action of the narrative, I had a major problem with the book. The prose was beautiful, at times lyrical. However, Siler chose to deliver the narrative in present tense. I found that device to be extremely cumbersome and awkward. In fact, I could not adjust to it and remained irritated by it throughout the entire 262 pages of the book. Beyond that, Siler has done an excellent job of depicting some complex and dysfunctional characters and relationships. The book is a terrific thriller with exciting action sequences and a hardboiled heroine that I am planning to meet again. A very good debut novel.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, June 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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