From Captive to Conspirator
Author: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
The Waters family is doing well; they originate from powerful political families with extensive ties. Samantha is a world-renowned journalist, going into risky situations and doing whatever it takes to get the story. Her sister, Monte, is a US Diplomat, monitoring insurgent movements and terrorists’ organizations. Their brother, Cal, works on big magazine assignments (ala National Geographic). For once, they’re all taking a break, gathering in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, to enjoy a festival that will kick-off their vacation and help them each forget the worries of their personal lives.
It turns out, however, to be a very bad idea to let their guard down, and when the smoke clears from a sudden terrorist attack, Monte is missing. Leveraging all their contacts, the Waters family searches for her, expecting a demand letter, negotiations, threats, something. But a year goes by, and no Monte. Meanwhile, in the depths of the Sahara Desert, Monte’s passion for ancient languages is paying off as she negotiates a horrifying ordeal and becomes deeply enmeshed with her kidnapper, a long-running conspiracy, international political and financial crimes, and the plans of a misanthrope named The Elder.
The Far Side of the Desert is an international thriller with a family twist, a taste for revenge, and enough trauma to keep readers upset and yet deeply engaged. In the first few pages, as the festival rages around the two sisters on vacation, we learn about Monte’s fears: her secret dissipating marriage, the haunting memories of her husband’s callousness, and her feelings of inadequacy when faced with Samantha’s beauty and success. This down-and-out state takes a very smart woman and puts her in a position that makes her kidnapping, her momentary lack of judgement, believable and deeply empathetic. We’re connected with Monte on an emotional and intellectual level by the time she is transported to a terrorist camp in the middle of the Sahara Desert. From here, we confront scenes of rape and abasement, a Stockholm-like syndrome that she forms with her captor, Safi, and an eventual escape that ups the ante and leads to an even more complicated thread of schemes.
Safi, aka Stephen, is a multifaceted villain. He is the second part of the story, the factor that takes it beyond the usual thriller/escape plot and adds moral complexity and a dangerous, multi-part scheme that sends Monte on a new trajectory when she returns to the States. We hate Safi, and yet. . . There is something about him, some deep secret, that Monte carefully unravels as she processes her trauma and begins again. Safi is half bad guy, half anti-hero. But after everything he has done . . . can we really trust him?
Image by Peter Schmidt from Pixabay
The Far Side of the Desert switches between perspectives, namely Samantha’s and Monte’s, with the occasional moment with Safi. The scenery changes and the characters, at first so open, become part of the hidden agenda. We pivot away from the desert to suddenly find a year past, Monte returned, the curtain drawn over the rest of her time with her captors. It’s an abrupt shift, a closure that we don’t like, that jostles us out of the story and makes us a bit hostile. After sharing so much, why hide now? The idea, as revealed, is a good one, but I never quite recovered from the transition.
Monte is clearly not ok, and slowly, the novel pivots again. It’s not as good as constantly being with Monte in her head, because now we are being fed curated memories. Just enough to show us that things got very complicated, especially with Safi, and to leave us to wonder how Monte escaped and what her plan is now. Is she in love with Safi now? In league with him? Seeking to destroy him? And how does The Elder, the catalyst for all this pain, fit into Monte’s final schemes?
The Far Side of the Desert goes fast, the reader unable to stop turning pages. The mystery pulls at us. The sense of betrayal, the bigger scheme that starts to unravel, sends Monte across the world again, dragging her hapless sister behind, slowly unveiling very dark secrets and a tentative, terrifying plan. It’s heart pounding, action packed, unpredictable, intricate in all the best kinds of ways, morally ambiguous and traumatic, dangerous and powerful. The story won’t stop, and we’re helpless. We must follow, from Spain to the desert to a dripping cave in Gibraltar and back across the world again. The problems of marriage and family give way, and Monte confronts something bigger and tries to understand her connection to Safi, her mission, her choices, her role in what she cannot now unknown.
I will seek out more books from Joanne Leedom-Ackerman. I appreciated the strong characters, the emotional connection, the details to attention and place, and the well-thought-out, action-packed story. The Far Side of the Desert was one of the best thrillers I have read in a long time. Highly recommended.
– Frances Carden
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