Savarona

Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully strange thriller!
Review: "From that day on, I was officially categorized as bipolar. Friends assumed this meant I swung neatly from euphoria one day to depression the next, as if my brain housed a track with stations at both ends. But in fact, for me, the trains were always moving in both directions at once and crashing in the middle, where the debris from one became indistinguishable from the other." So writes Bill Bigelow, the unlikely narrator who finds himself entangled in CIA shenanigans and a terrorist plot while simultaneously losing his mind. Well, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you. With this kind of insight, one can only assume that the author of this odd and interesting book is writing from experience.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully strange thriller!
Review: "From that day on, I was officially categorized as bipolar. Friends assumed this meant I swung neatly from euphoria one day to depression the next, as if my brain housed a track with stations at both ends. But in fact, for me, the trains were always moving in both directions at once and crashing in the middle, where the debris from one became indistinguishable from the other." So writes Bill Bigelow, the unlikely narrator who finds himself entangled in CIA shenanigans and a terrorist plot while simultaneously losing his mind. Well, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT out to get you. With this kind of insight, one can only assume that the author of this odd and interesting book is writing from experience.

Rating:
Summary: Istanbul Intrigue
Review: The CIA justifiably provides most of the heroes (and villains!) for the international thriller genre, but who says America's diplomats can't join in the fun? In this lively, engaging, and highly plausible novel, Mr. Hart shows that life is not just one endless cocktail party for the men and women who staff U.S. embassies around the world. Protagonist George McCall already has more than enough personal and professional problems to deal with when he is unwillingly drawn into a web of intrigue involving Kurdish terrorists, the CIA (yes, they're here, too!), powerful U.S. congressmen, and his all-too-human Turkish and American colleagues from the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Like any good Hitchcock hero, McCall is utterly overwhelmed at first, but slowly discovers hidden reserves of courage and cunning to rise to the challenge. Mr. Hart employs several unusual narrative perspectives to spin a story that could have been plucked from yesterday's (or tomorrow's) headlines. Finally, Hart draws on his own experiences as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer to paint a vivid, "warts and all" portrait of America's diplomats at work overseas, one instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever worked in an embassy or consulate.

Rating:
Summary: The Great American (Foreign Service) Novel?
Review: There has been a lot of talk about this book -- mostly its perspective on mental illness and vivid portrayal of exotic Istanbul. But what interested me most was the way "Savarona" casually peeled back the skin of the U.S. Foreign Service for an unflinching, inside look. This is as much an expose' as it is a literary thriller. Although J. Patrick Hart (the pseudonym of a real diplomat who obviously wants to stay anonymous) insists it's all fiction, somehow I have my doubts -- every word and mannerism just rings too true. I would have given "Savarona" the full five stars if not for the somewhat confusing first few chapters. Hart's use of multiple narrative perspectives is a challenge at first, but once you figure it out the book really hums. I realize this novel has already found a wider audience, but for those searching specifically for the Great Foreign Service Novel, search no more.