Published by Sphere, 17 January 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-7515-4376-6
One purpose of fiction, I’ve long believed, is to highlight and
illustrate truths which might get writers of factual books and the more ethical
kind of journalist into trouble.
Sometimes,
especially in genre fiction, the illustration is overly coloured and dramatic –
but then fiction does tend to home in on crisis points in the characters’
lives, so a grain of truth surely remains.
Enter
Mark Gimenez, who has already been hailed as a worthy successor to John Grisham
and Scott Turow for his earlier novels which lifted the lid on aspects of the
American legal system. In The Governor’s Wife, he opens a window on to
politics, especially the Republican variety.
His
is a biased view; his graphic descriptions of Latino poverty, set against the
opulent lifestyle of his high-flyer politician protagonist, make no bones about
that. But somehow it all springs to vivid life in a way which grips the
attention as it appals.
Political
polemic it isn’t. First and foremost it’s a rattling good page-turner of a
story set against a starkly distinctive landscape in which the climate is as
extreme as the contrasts between rich and poor. There’s a high body count,
action hot on the heels of drama and a high-octane climax in which cosmic
justice is dispensed all round. The characters are larger than life: the women
are all beautiful, the men are either six-foot-plus heroes or smart and
cunning. And when the still-honourable governor’s wife leaves the luxurious
mansion paid for by her ambitious husband’s abandonment of the high principles
she loved him for, and goes to work as a nurse in the state’s poorest strip of
land, the message come across loud and clear.
Plenty
of tough and intriguing questions are posed along the way, giving this
fast-paced, exhilarating narrative an extra dimension. Read it and you’ll never
regard American politics in quite the same light again.
-----
Reviewer: Lynne
Patrick
Mark Gimenez is an author and lawyer from Texas. He specializes in the thriller genre
writing, especially legal thrillers. His first novel, The Color of Law, was a
New York Times bestseller. He also runs his own solo law practice
Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen,
and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but
never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher
for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now
burgeoning.
She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house
groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.
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