In this posthumous novel, British author Bainbridge paints a hypothetical picture of what might have been happening in 1968 America amid the turmoil of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. Through young English Rose and her unlikely companion, known to her as Washington Harold, the reader is taken on a cross-country trip in search of the elusive Dr. Wheeler, an acquaintance of both. Along the way, the pair always seem one step behind their mysterious quarry and meet a host of interesting characters who all have a link to this man. Rose wants to find Dr. Wheeler because he is the one stable and bright spot from her troubled childhood. Washington's reasons for finding Dr. Wheeler do not become clear until a surprise ending. All aspects of this novel come together in an exciting and curious encounter with presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. VERDICT Both vivid and dark, this page-turner is sure to be sought after by both historical fiction and mystery lovers. Highly recommended.—Leann Restaino, Girard, OH
The last novel from English author Bainbridge, who died in July 2010.
Against the chaotic backdrop of 1968 America, a young British woman, Rose, and an angry widower pursue an elusive figure, admired and mythologized by her and murderously despised by him, from East Coast to West, a pursuit that culminates (though it doesn't quite end) at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. on the June night when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Rose has come to the U.S. in search of Dr. Wheeler, who seems (all exposition in this book comes through a glass, darkly) to have been her protector during an awful adolescence. She is met in Baltimore and accompanied on her search—it's akind ofaccompaniment thatresembles hostage-holding—by someoneshe knows only as Washington Harold, an ill-tempered, secretive man whose wife had an affair with Wheeler and then committed suicide. Harold is, as the sometimessavvyand sometimes childishly self-absorbed Rose seems to intuit, using her; he intends to take revenge. Everywhere they go along the way they encounter mayhem and threat—a botched bank robbery in which a gun is held toRose's head, killings, near-riots, racial animus. Bainbridge died before she could finish her 17th novel, and toward the end, especially, this odd, angular picaresque feels chaotic and choppy. Still, it shows off the author's gifts for compression and dark, deadpan wit. Behindit all rest thesinister and violent undertones that discomfit the reader from first page to last.
Unfinished, but a fitting and worthy coda to a storied career.
The last novel from English author Bainbridge, who died in July 2010.
Against the chaotic backdrop of 1968 America, a young British woman, Rose, and an angry widower pursue an elusive figure, admired and mythologized by her and murderously despised by him, from East Coast to West, a pursuit that culminates (though it doesn't quite end) at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. on the June night when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Rose has come to the U.S. in search of Dr. Wheeler, who seems (all exposition in this book comes through a glass, darkly) to have been her protector during an awful adolescence. She is met in Baltimore and accompanied on her search—it's akind ofaccompaniment thatresembles hostage-holding—by someoneshe knows only as Washington Harold, an ill-tempered, secretive man whose wife had an affair with Wheeler and then committed suicide. Harold is, as the sometimessavvyand sometimes childishly self-absorbed Rose seems to intuit, using her; he intends to take revenge. Everywhere they go along the way they encounter mayhem and threat—a botched bank robbery in which a gun is held toRose's head, killings, near-riots, racial animus. Bainbridge died before she could finish her 17th novel, and toward the end, especially, this odd, angular picaresque feels chaotic and choppy. Still, it shows off the author's gifts for compression and dark, deadpan wit. Behindit all rest thesinister and violent undertones that discomfit the reader from first page to last.
Unfinished, but a fitting and worthy coda to a storied career.
