Carr,
Alex. An Accidental American. New York: Random House, 2007.
c.240p. ISBN 0-8129-7708-4. [ISBN 978-0-8129-7708-0]. pap.
$9.95. Fiction
Nicole
Blake, the accidental American of the title, is a forger
who has gone straight after serving six years in a French
prison. Her quiet life in the Pyrenees is shattered when
American agent John Valsamis pressures
her into tracking down her former lover, Rahim Ali, a suspected
terrorist living in Lisbon. When Valsamis shoots Rahim,
Nicole finds herself on the run and in possession of an
invoice for five dirty bombs destined for Iraq. At the same
time, Sabri Kanj, a captive being tortured in Amman, Jordan,
asks to see former CIA director of operations Richard Morrow,
claiming to know the identity of an American mole who had
advance knowledge of the 1983
bombing of the American embassy in Beirut. The connections
among all these characters, who are not what they seem,
are slowly revealed as Nicole struggles not only to survive
but to understand a complicated past that includes the death
of her Lebanese mother in a car bombing. A tightly entwined
plot with numerous reversals, poetic descriptions, thorough
research, and a lightly fictionalized treatment of America’s
Mideast travails make this an intriguing read. Recommended
for popular fiction collections; Carr is a pseudonym for novelist
Jenny Siler (Easy Money).