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LAW OF RETURN
by Rebecca Pawel
Soho Crime, February 2004
288 pages
$24.00
ISBN: 1569473439


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Rebecca Pawel's first novel, DEATH OF A NATIONALIST, set in 1930s Spain, was a formidable achievement for a 20-something American woman, and was rightly praised to the skies and nominated for awards.

LAW OF RETURN, the sequel, is a fine achievement too, but it pales a little by comparison with book one. I can't quite put my finger on why, although part of it might be that the novelty value of a right-wing hero -- or should that be anti-hero -- has worn off somewhat.

Carlos Tejada is a member of Franco's Guardia Civil. In LAW OF RETURN he's been promoted to lieutenant and moved from Madrid to Salamanca, a university town. It's now 1940 and the war between England and Germany is a distant backdrop to the book. Pawel has, perhaps wisely, elected to move the action out of the capital, as there may well be a limit to how much you can portray the dismal after-effects of civil war in the urban setting -- although that was of course one of the strengths of DEATH OF A NATIONALIST.

Tejada is a fascinating and remarkable character and, sadly, there's not quite enough of him. In his search to track down a missing university professor, he again encounters Elena Fernandez, the left-wing teacher who so attracted him in the first book. And there's another supporting role for the terribly enthusiastic Jimenez, who has been promoted to the rank of corporal.

Elena's a convincing and spirited foil, but I found I wanted more of Carlos. He's that rare beast in crime fiction, an ambiguous and challenging hero, with his far-right politics and violent dismissal of the 'Reds.' To a 21st century reader, characters' casual admiration for Germany and Hitler and their certainty that England will soon be defeated makes this an uncomfortable read.

Carlos, though, is a character who moves and changes as he and Elena try to save a Jewish escapee from Nazi Germany. The slightly enigmatic title is explained near the end as Carlos is forced to wrestle with his conscience.

Pawel writes admirably tight, matter-of-fact prose. Her weakness, though, is a tendency towards those annoying 'little did she know' throwaway lines where the reader mutters darkly 'never mind that, get on with the action!' And the book could have done with a little more stringent editing out of the Americanisms in dialogue although these are fortunately not as intrusive as in DEATH OF A NATIONALIST.

This apart, LAW OF RETURN is well worthy of your attention and we should give thanks for the fact Pawel is writing ambitious, challenging and thought-provoking genre fiction.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, July 2004

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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