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Roisin Gardner is in London, licking her wounds after a language school enterprise in Poland with her then partner Michel went pear-shaped in spectacular fashion. She's now teaching English to overseas students in a college and is wondering what to do next – until she falls head over heels (literally) in love with Joe Massey. Before she can catch her breath, they're married and 48 hours later she's whisked off to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Joe has a new job as a pathologist in a hospital, and Roisin is lined up to teach English in the women's university. Roisin isn't at all enamoured of the dull, introspective life of the other ex-pats. And she soon starts to discover that her husband has some buried secrets from a previous stint in Riyadh, including the drugs that had gone missing from the hospital, and the friend who was beheaded in a city square. STRANGERS is high on atmosphere, but at times rather lacking in tension. Carla Banks has presented us with a page-turner, but she takes a real risk in leaving the action until a fair way through the book. Until then it reads like an intriguing but slightly unfocussed non-genre novel. The book is set mainly in London and Saudi, with the scenes set in the latter being the most atmospheric, as we share Roisin's discovery of the markets, old town, the ex-pats' compound and the rarefied, restrictive world of the women's university. STRANGERS isn't polemic, but it will make you angry at the lifestyle women are forced to lead. Banks provides balance in the form of Professor Souad, a woman who has to make compromises to achieve an international profile. Equally strong are the scenes featuring ex-pat fixer Damien O'Neill, who has built up relationships with ordinary Saudis, including the policeman Majid and his family. His preoccupation with the One Thousand and One Nights echoes through the story, rather as Banks's use of fairy tales did in her previous book THE FOREST OF SOULS. Banks is very strong on characterisation, and surrounds her leads with a memorable supporting cast including Roisin's cranky elderly friend Old George, and the Saudi women she meets through the university. I wager that you'll guess one of the main plot threads – it's blindingly obvious and Banks is generous with clues if you are paying attention. The book's resolution is slightly lacking in menace, although Banks is rapidly turning into the queen of ambiguous endings (read her short story Out of her Mind in the recent ID: CRIMES OF IDENTITY anthology to see what I mean!) But STRANGERS is well worth reading for its portrayal of a woman isolated in an alien culture.
Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, January 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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