Editorial Content for Burning Distance
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Reviewer (text)
“Nothing is as it appears. Be careful.”
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman’s THE DARK PATH TO THE RIVER was published in 1987, decades and a world apart from this beguiling espionage thriller that features mature, civilized youth. Miriam West’s daughters --- Jane, Sophie and Elizabeth --- move from D.C. to London in the 1980s when Miriam marries Sir Winston Chatham. Elizabeth (“Lizzy”) was 10 when her ex-CIA agent father, Jesse West (covert operative name: Calvin Wheat), died in a suspicious aircraft crash.
"...a mystery solved by an audacious young lady’s wit and cunning. It has overtones somewhat comparable to a cross-cultural rendition of the Bard’s classic, Romeo and Juliet."
The male characters are portrayed as feckless schlimazels: Lizzy’s stepfather, “Lord” Winston, and his son, Dennis. According to Chatham’s daughter, “Pickles,” Dennis said “he was going to be rich so he could move out of this family of ill-bred women.” Dennis schmoozes Gerald Wagner, alluded to as a former Nazi, who assumes the fictitious title of Doctor. A mouse trying to devour the cat.
As teens, Lizzy’s Lebanese-Palestinian classmate, Adil Hasan, causes an explosion in a London school lab by improperly mixing chemicals. That’s not the only chemical reaction in this tale that could have been written by a contemporary Jane Austen, with a hint of John le Carré espionage seasoning.
Lizzy and Adil are smitten, destined to be a couple, but Adil’s father is extradited from England based on allegations from “Doctor” Wagner regarding weapons trafficking. The plot thickens like winter molasses as readers learn that Adil’s dad had close ties to Jesse West’s covert pseudonym, Calvin Wheat. And the fictitious doctor knows about illicit weapons, his chosen profession.
Adil leaves London to be near his father, who traipses about the Middle East to labyrinthine safe houses. Lizzy’s letters to Adil are returned, and she learns that Chatham has received and hidden some of Adil’s letters, giving Lizzy the impression of lost love. But she prevails, traveling to East Berlin the year the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall collapse, and connects dots leading to her father, Adil’s family, Wagner and Chatham: “Past and present suddenly collided in my head like a migraine.”
Readers initially may consider BURNING DISTANCE to be a weak thriller, but given Lizzy’s teen point of view, the tale flows in that vein: “We were close to being adults, but we didn’t yet have control over our lives.” Instead of being promoted as an espionage thriller, it should be considered a mystery solved by an audacious young lady’s wit and cunning. It has overtones somewhat comparable to a cross-cultural rendition of the Bard’s classic, Romeo and Juliet.
Teaser
When 10-year-old Elizabeth West’s father dies in a tragic plane crash, her family moves to London. Her mother marries a knighted British businessman who has two children, and Elizabeth (Lizzy) and her two sisters move in with their new family. At age 16, while attending the American School of London, Lizzy meets and falls in love with Adil Hasan. But when Adil’s father is deported, Lizzy and Adil are separated. Lizzy’s family has also become involved with French-German industrialist Gerald Rene Wagner. Little does she know that Adil’s family has ties to the man as well. When a member of her family is murdered in Berlin under mysterious circumstances, questions surface about Wagner’s dealings, and Lizzy reexamines what really may have happened to her father.
Promo
When 10-year-old Elizabeth West’s father dies in a tragic plane crash, her family moves to London. Her mother marries a knighted British businessman who has two children, and Elizabeth (Lizzy) and her two sisters move in with their new family. At age 16, while attending the American School of London, Lizzy meets and falls in love with Adil Hasan. But when Adil’s father is deported, Lizzy and Adil are separated. Lizzy’s family has also become involved with French-German industrialist Gerald Rene Wagner. Little does she know that Adil’s family has ties to the man as well. When a member of her family is murdered in Berlin under mysterious circumstances, questions surface about Wagner’s dealings, and Lizzy reexamines what really may have happened to her father.
About the Book
A modern-day Romeo and Juliet --- set against the backdrop of deadly weapons smuggling.
When 10-year-old Elizabeth West’s father dies in a tragic plane crash over the Persian Gulf, her family uproots their life in Washington, D.C., and moves to London. Her mother marries a knighted British businessman who has two children, and Elizabeth (Lizzy) and her two sisters move in with their new family.
At age 16, while attending the American School of London, Lizzy meets and falls in love with Adil Hasan --- but when Adil’s father, a noted arms middleman, is deported, Lizzy and Adil are separated.
Lizzy’s family has also become involved with French-German industrialist Gerald Rene Wagner. Little does she know that Adil’s family has ties to the man, as well. When a member of her family is murdered in Berlin under mysterious circumstances, questions surface about Wagner’s dealings, and Lizzy reexamines what really may have happened to her father. All the while, she endeavors to reunite with her lost love, Adil, and reclaim the connection that was ripped away.
Set in the years before and after the first Gulf War, BURNING DISTANCE is a journey through family secrets and competing loyalties, contemporary history and the dark world of arms trafficking.
Jane Austen meets John le Carré in this cross-cultural love story and political thriller.
Audiobook available, read by Danielle Rippy
