Sight Unseen

September 23, 2019
At the start of British author Hurley’s meandering sequel to Curtain Call, London-based actress Enora Andressen receives a hysterical call from her 18-year-old son, Malo. He tells her that his girlfriend Clemenza, the daughter of “a very wealthy Colombian business tycoon,” has been kidnapped, and Malo has been told to come up with $1 million in a few days if he wants to see Clemenza again. This revelation is followed by a long, slow trek through Enora’s backstory—illegitimate son, disintegrating first marriage, menacingly proprietorial and mega-wealthy former lover, brain cancer surgery, and much more—thus diminishing any storytelling urgency. Enora calls Hayden Prentice, “one-time drug baron” and Malo’s father, who in turn calls Clemenza’s father, who flies in from Bogotá ready to deal with the kidnappers. Most of the action sequences are reported to Enora, whose involvement consists mainly of careening from one absurd situation to another. This is for fans of British soap opera. It won’t satisfy readers looking for thrills or a convincing and sympathetic female protagonist. Agent: Oli Munson, A.M. Heath (U.K.).

October 15, 2019
Right off, we are confronted with what seems like a story-in-a-bottle, drifting in from another time. We meet elegant, beautifully tailored people out of the New Wave films of the past century, moving about a London flat, dissing a performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor, touching brush strokes on a seascape. Having sex. We learn the heroine suffered a brain tumor and is bald from chemo. Her friend is blind and was born with a club foot. Here's another survivor from those old films: the sick soul of Europe. The sickness here is cocaine. Mountains of it, distributed by Somalis who spook the old-guard drug lords: "Extreme violence is a default setting." A young man's girlfriend has been kidnapped?that's the plot starter?and his cancer-stricken mom senses this frightening world is the key. Her boy has "become the meat in someone else's sandwich." Hurley brings his story home in a clipped British style that links Old Bad and New Bad in a way that will appeal to hard-boiled fans on both sides of the pond.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)