WAS it Frederick Forsyth who did it first? The integration of real-life
characters into the mechanics of a fictitious plot, and the heaping of
verisimilitude onto heroes who rub shoulders with famous luminaries, might have
lost the freshness it seemed to have in The Day of the Jackal. But in
fact, the device dates back at least as far as Tolstoy鈥檚 Pierre, who caught a
glimpse of Napoleon back in the 19th century. If an author has sufficient
panache, the trick can still give genuine pleasure.
With Joseph Kanon鈥檚 Los Alamos (Abacus, 拢15.99/$25,
ISBN 0316640018), we find ourselves in the high security confines of the
Manhattan Project in the final days of the Second World War鈥攁nd such is
Kanon鈥檚 skill at recreating this universe, that a security guard鈥檚 affectionate
listing of his charges as 鈥淥ppie, Fermi, Bethe and co鈥� doesn鈥檛 strike the reader
as at all forced.
Robert Oppenheimer is strikingly characterised鈥攁nd in a smart and
intelligently realised novel like Kanon鈥檚, the reader is happy to buy this
version of the man, almost regardless of how accurate it may be.
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The reader identification with this world of highly supervised scientists
(given to adolescent pranks as a way of rebelling against the super-strict
security) is adroitly channelled through Connolly, the liaison officer sent to
investigate the possibly homosexual murder of one of the camp鈥檚 security
personnel.
Ian McEwan makes an intriguing choice of profession for the central character
of his latest novel, Enduring Love (Cape, 拢15.95, 0224050311):
he鈥檚 a popular science journalist. McEwan鈥檚 own fascination with this area is
well known, but he gives his hero a wistful longing for a hard science career
now abandoned. As before with McEwan, it鈥檚 the clever activation of popularised
concepts that give the kick-start to his thriller-like narrative: here a tale of
obsession鈥攑ossibly sexual, but somehow more complex鈥攊s decorated
with Darwinian and humanist perspectives.
As ever McEwan delivers the page-turning goods, although a grisly balloon
set-piece at the start is rather dissipated in a dry case-history
ending鈥攅ven Hitchcock couldn鈥檛 quite bring this device off. Still, it鈥檚
McEwan鈥檚 most compulsive novel since The Innocent.
Stephen Dobyns鈥檚 The Church of Dead Girls(Viking/Penguin,
拢9.99, ISBN 0670877425) is a cleverly constructed book which marries
several familiar elements: the small town under whose calm surface sexual and
other tensions simmer; the psychotic character whose minor acts of mayhem
foreshadow a possible homicide; and a neutral narrator who knows just about
enough about the protagonists to speculate on who is behind the killings. We
also have an intellectual guru. In this case, he is a Marxist professor at the
local college who may or may not be a catalyst for extreme actions in his
impressionable students.
Dobyns successfully stirs these elements into a fresh brew, but the cool tone
he endows on his narrator doesn鈥檛 always pay dividends. Is it intended that the
scientific approach and detachment leave grisly horrors鈥攖he handless
stumps of murder victims, for instance鈥攏arrated in a reined-in prose which
sometimes neutralises the charge? But the town鈥檚 undercurrents are conveyed with
intelligence and subtlety, with the growing 鈥渕urder next door鈥� paranoia cannily
accelerated. The unlikeable teenage students鈥攐ne of whom is a memorable
sociopath given to Tysonesque biting attacks鈥攁re strikingly painted.
Are our identities increasingly defined by information held on computers and
ever-more-sophisticated surveillance? Ron McKay muses thus through The Leper
Colony (Gollancz, 拢9.99, ISBN 0575064749). A Glasgow-set search by a
son for the truth about his family, this is tough and involving . . . As is
David Ambrose鈥檚 ingenious story of experiments with the power of the mind,
Superstition(Macmillan, 拢16.99, ISBN 0333682645). His sequences
involving the 鈥渃reation鈥� of a ghost have a genuine charge.
Finally, a welcome return to form for William Gibson with Idoru now
out in paperback (Penguin, 拢6.99/$6.99, ISBN 0140241078, reviewed
in hardback 23 November, 1996), a heady cocktail of psychic netrunners and
virtual media stars in a bizarre Japanese setting.