'The Prince of Bagram Prison': A Time-Shifting Tale of Intrigue

Review of THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON (Random House Trade Paperbacks 2008)
Author, Alex Carr

After reading Alex Carr's first novel (at least, the first under that name), AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN, I was anxious to get my hands on her latest, THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON. Feeling slight trepidation that the first amazing novel written under that pseudonym might be a hard act to top, I nevertheless got hold of a copy, as soon as I could.

I'm happy to say that this book only deepened my respect for Carr and increased my devotion to her work.

This isn't to say that THE PRINCE OF BAGRAM PRISON is a novel that everyone will embrace. As in her previous book, Carr engages in a good deal of narrative time shifting. And, unlike AN ACCIDENTAL AMERICAN, in which different people tended to show up at different times, the time shifts in this book tend to involve the same people throughout--so it's easy to get confused about what year it is and where you are exactly when the shifts take place. But if you pay attention, the effort will pay off.

Like her previous book, Carr is dealing in the shadowy world of espionage--this time, though, she focuses on the post-9/11 world (flashing back, now and then, to the final throes of the Vietnam War). We meet Kat Caldwell, an Army intelligence reservist, who's called away from her teaching post at a Virginia military college to help locate a young boy--a CIA informant--who's disappeared. Kat is enlisted to aid a not-so-nice (to really understate the matter) intelligence operative in this quest, because she grew to know the young man while interrogating him at Bagram Prison.

The meaning of the book's title and all the other details are best discovered in the reading. So I'll just say this: Carr's writing in this book is as evocative and insightful as her previous effort. Her characters are complex and (depending on who we're talking about) sad, endearing, disgusting, pathetic, upright or amoral--often times, a combination of these traits. The plot, though complex and hard to follow at first, is constructed painstakingly. And, even if you lose the narrative thread now and then, the sheer beauty of the prose more than makes up for it.

And, as you draw nearer to the conclusion, a big payoff awaits, in terms of the story's building suspense (which kept me turning the pages late into the night) and satisfying resolution--at least, with respect to one character. For another, things seem less resolved than to be just simmering down. Carr apparently likes a little ambiguity in her story endings. When we're talking about the unsettling realm of espionage, that does seem appropriate.

Readers of the first Alex Carr book will recognize one major character from that story and a passing reference to a minor one in this book.

As in the first book, Carr writes a moving epilogue in this one, in which she talks about her past and how it shaped the creation of one of the characters.

Now, having finished both Alex Carr novels, I guess I have to check out her work as Jenny Siler. Without trepidation or hesitation.