The Incendiaries

By R O Kwon, Virago, £14.99

Review by Dan Brotzel

This slim novel tells the story of an unusual love triangle in which faith, loss and obsession all play their part.

At an Ivy-clad American university, Phoebe — a beautiful, glamorous socialite who accidentally killed her own mother in a car crash — meets and romances Will, a driven, out-of-place scholarship boy with family traumas of his own.

He’s escaped Bible college and the clutches of evangelical fundamentalism and now waits on tables, all the while lying to his new friends about his impoverished background.

Will’s love for Phoebe is both watchful and ecstatic.

Phoebe, as far as she can, seems to love Will, too. But she’s drawn into a religious sect led by the barefooted and darkly charismatic John Neale.

Both she and John are of Korean descent and the sect has links to North Korea and also has linkage to Phoebe’s family.

Somehow Neale’s sect, with its group confessions and alarming physical chastisements, appeals to Phoebe, while Will, who has escaped one fanaticism, must now try to rescue Phoebe from another, then she disappears.

This is a brilliantly written book.

The prose is sparse and yet wonderfully expressive. The gradual filling in of layers of motivation and character build a drama and suspense all of their own and what starts out as an absorbing psychological study keeps you guessing right to the end.