Two years ago, Robert Ferrigno published Prayers for the Assassin, a novel set in a Moslem-dominated United States a few decades from now. To summarize the plot may be a thought crime in Canada, so, lest I be forbidden to attend next year’s World Science Fiction Convention, I’ll just say that the book was a political thriller whose hero, in true thriller fashion, battled a shadowy, globe girdling conspiracy, the full extent of which became evident only at the climax. Also in thriller fashion, the villain, temporarily thwarted, escaped to plot again in the sequel. That sequel, Sins of the Assassin, has just gone on sale. A third volume will, the author tells us, complete the story.
In Sins, the scene of the action moves from the Islamic Republic to the “Bible Belt”, the section of the former U.S.A., roughly coterminous with the “red” Southern states, that resisted the Moslem advance. As the nickname suggests, it is modeled on liberal shibboleths about Christian fundamentalism, though the model is subtly subversive of left-wing conventional wisdom. Individualistic hyper-piety can lead to many bad things, but it is a poor foundation for an effective theocracy.
The Bible Belt that we see through the eyes of Rakkim Epps, a Moslem “shadow warrior” assigned to penetrate the top secret project of a charismatic warlord, is weak, backward, fragmented, superstitious, corrupt and in thrall to foreign powers, yet it is also freer, more tolerant and more hopeful than its Islamic counterpart. This difference is not exactly an ostentatious theme. It is never emphasized, and the hero doesn’t notice it. The reader must observe and ponder for himself. If the author’s intention was propagandistic, it is propaganda of the only kind suitable for fiction, where we are shown a variation on our own world and must tease out the implications for ourselves.
Regardless of the background, the thriller is the foreground. I’m not a great afficionado of the genre, but, so far as I can judge, this is a first rate exemplar. The plot moves twistily and rapidly. The hero receives a little supernatural aid but none from sheer good luck. The characters, while not realistic, are interesting and multi-dimensional. Even the secondary ones have memorable touches, like the grotesque pride that an end-times cult leader takes in having once been a tenured university professor. When the hidden hand of the archvillain is at last disclosed, the form that it takes is characteristic but unexpected. The prose is clear and energetic, albeit more telegraphic than I like. (Did the publisher ration the word “and”?)
From what one might call the Alexandre Dumas perspective, Sins is, I think, more successful than Prayers. It isn’t quite perfect for two reasons. First, and less importantly, the Big Secret proves to be a macguffin. Maybe Mr. Ferrigno will surprise us, but I don’t see how it can be of any actual use to the parties that have so desperately sought it. (Also, unless he springs a second surprise, it is scientifically absurd.)
Second, as the middle volume of a trilogy, the novel doesn’t come to a real end. True, the plot lines are tied up, which is better than many middles do, but the villains are left in a position of strength, from which the world needs to be rescued. Rakkim’s mission has ended in, at best, a draw. Meanwhile, the secondary narrative thread concludes with an effective, though invisible, coup d’etat against the Islamic Republic’s moderate governing authorities. Prayers ended more satisfactorily. While it left room for a sequel, none was urgently demanded. Sins, by contrast, will be less than half a book until the next volume appears.
The upside is that volume three, if Mr. Ferrigno goes on as he has begun, will be worth waiting for.
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