Novel has hint of magical realism
Wanda is named after the hurricane she was born in. It’s also the hurricane that changes the trajectory of her life.
“The Light Pirate” by Lily Brooks-Dalton takes place at a time not far from our reality and goes on to imagine a frighteningly near-future of encroaching waves and crumbling, unsustainable infrastructure completely changing the landscape and life itself.
In a show of expert pacing, Brooks-Dalton begins the story as Hurricane Wanda approaches. During the sickeningly slow build we spend a good amount of time with each character, getting to know and love them, raising the stakes. The momentum gains as the storm becomes urgent and then right on top of them, the page breaks coming faster — too fast — in pace with the pounding rain and lifeor-death struggle as each person realizes they’re entirely not where they need to be to weather the storm.
If you picked “The Light Pirate” up thinking it was slyly half-hiding a magical twist, you’d be kind of right.
The book jacket hints at it, the first part teases it, then part two finally shows what we’ve been waiting for: a spark of magic in the otherwise depressing and all-too probable rendering of Florida slowly succumbing to the tide and time.
But the magic part of the magical realism remains slight, teasing; closer to science fiction than pure magic. Brooks-Dalton plays with this idea, asserting that science is simply the pursuit to name and understand something magical. Both become hard to define in the harsh, watery world where science and magic meet and meld into one in the same and also nothing.
Fascinating and fantastical
descriptions also hint at magic, capturing the otherworldly experiences of nature at its most powerful and unstoppable.
Despite the foreboding topic of environmental disaster, the novel rewards readers with peace and solace after persevering through a series of tragedies that feel too close to home.
“The Light Pirate” is a symphony of beauty and heartbreak, survival and loneliness. Combined, it’s a haunting melody of nature. — Donna Edwards, Associated Press
After the Cold War, former Soviet spy
Ivo Balodis built himself a fortress in an abandoned missile site on an island in the Baltic Sea. There, he has continued to deal in secrets — but for profit instead of for country. Balodis is now in possession of America’s most vital defense secret and is accepting bids on it, expecting to net $2 billion.
Chase Prescott, an insufferably haughty CIA agent, is desperate to retrieve it. But how? The secret is on a flash drive stored in a state-of-the-art vault. The vault lies at the bottom of a missile silo on Balodis’ island. And the island is fortified and guarded by a team of former Russian
special forces troops.
So Prescott turns to
Riley Wolfe, self-proclaimed world’s greatest thief — a man motivated less by profit than by the thrill of doing the impossible. As readers of Jeff Lindsay’s first two books in this series know, Wolfe can steal anything, no matter how well-guarded.
As Lindsay’s “ThreeEdged Sword” opens, Prescott abducts Wolfe and presents him with a proposition. If Wolfe can retrieve the flash drive, Prescott will arrange immunity for his past crimes. If he doesn’t, the agent will kill both Wolfe’s ill mother and his best friend, an art forger named Monique.
Wolfe agrees, even though he has no doubt that Prescott will have him killed as soon as he delivers.
As usual with a Lindsay thriller, the darkly humorous tale is tightly written. For the most part, the ingenious plot unfolds at the furious pace the author’s fans have come to expect.
Occasionally, however, it slows in poignant sections about Monique. She is just awakening from a coma, and Lindsay does a fine job of portraying her struggle as she tries to remember who she is.