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Fifth grader, Jason Redding, and his classmates were excited to be on their field trip to the Getty Center in their home city of Los Angeles. Their teacher was thrilled that her students chose the museum to visit since she was an amateur painter herself. The class trip was proceeding perfectly until Jason saw a beautiful, colorful box hidden under a staircase. It was so wonderful that Jason couldn't resist opening it. The explosion that followed killed Jason and his teacher, leaving nothing for Jason's mother to grieve over but one of Jason's sneakers. One of the first investigators to the crime scene was bomb and terrorist expert, Edmond Sweetheart. Sweetheart was used to seeing the destruction and loss of lives that bombs cause but this case was different because little Jason Redding was Sweetheart's nephew. Sweetheart vowed that he was going to find and arrest the man who he knew planted this bomb, John Freeman Dantes. Dantes was a man already infamous for making and detonating explosive devices. A year later John Dantes was in prison and the anniversary of the Getty blast was soon approaching when the FBI called in a New Mexico psychiatrist famous for her books dealing with certain psychological disorders. Sylvia Strange was invited to come to Los Angeles to run some psychiatric tests on Dantes. Strange had some problems of her own. A patient of hers had recently committed suicide and Sylvia blamed herself for not being able to save her. Even though he was in prison, John Dantes did his homework on Dr. Strange. Their first meeting was a disaster because Dantes knew exactly how to use Sylvia's guilt against her. But that was just a first assessment. Dantes was testing Sylvia to see if she would be able to find the real Getty bomber. The madman who called himself M was out to destroy Dantes' beloved city of Los Angeles. As incidents of bomb threats and destruction start to occur in Los Angeles with increasing frequency, it is up to Strange, Sweetheart, and FBI Agent Purcell to figure out M's cryptic messages to them. They all descend the nine circles to hell in hopes that they can stop M from making Los Angeles another fire ridden inferno. DANTES' INFERNO is a real page turner. Author Sarah Lovett compares the city of Los Angeles with ancient Babylon and to Dante Alighieri's INFERNO, complete with the Nine Circles that lead to hell. Lovett has done a spectacular job is showing us how the mind of someone like a bomber works, taking us back to his childhood and how he survives as an adult. We are given an interesting cast of characters to follow in this book. I especially like the fact that Dr. Sylvia Strange is not the easily written perfect woman that tends to be found in too may pieces of fiction. One of the things that chills the readers to the bone in Dantes' Inferno, is the unnerving way that M talks about the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He can't help but rhapsodize about how wonderful things would have been for the bombing if things went as according to plan. The book was written before the horror of the 2001 World Trade Center attack, but having the character talk about the previous bombing there brought home the nightmare. The book rang horrifyingly true. This is a excellent thriller. It was almost possible to feel sorry for John Freeman Dantes who regretted starting M on his road of despair and destruction.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, November 2002
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