Review: splendid, splendid, read
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 26, 2012
Take an elderly neighbor in a quiet township, where the pace of life revolves around watching daily the birds in the garden and ensuring her cat doesn't use the wildlife as lunch, throw in the sudden disappearance of her best friend, another widow, introduce an unlikely hero in the form of a beautiful white homing pigeon, and what do you get? A superb story, spun at a pace that keeps the reader anticipating chapter by chapter. The delicious spinning out of the morsels of information, almost like the feeding program of the birds, builds the tension beautifully.Almost daily visits from Henry, the pigeon, with snippets of notes tethered to its leg, give clues about where the by now obviously abducted neighbor is being moved around. The local law officers, old friends with the narrator, is a perfect foil for bouncing off the perpetually revised theories of the kidnapped widow's whereabouts.With a history of oppressive gambling debts, the appearance of the widow's son as the supposed kidnapper's means of ensuring ransom, plays well into the evolving intrigue.Henry is the central character in the entire story, and his struggle to continue to get the messages through are core to the ultimate denouement. Like any good hero, he overcomes the odds that are stacked against him, despite injury and exhaustion, even with the attention of his own avian sweetheart (every hero needs a female counterparty), in a finale that is as punchy as it is gratifying.A splendid read.