Gun Games
by Faye Kellerman
(Wm Morrow 2012)
The passion and devotion of young love is a precious experience for each of us. It can happen at any time of life. In this context, to me, the word young simply means abandonment of reason to the cherished experience of loving another person.
How do you feel about that? Can young love happen later in life, or is it relegated to youth who actually don’t have the life experience to know any better. To me, a huge element of the emotion is having lived enough life to appreciate the investment of self.
In Gun Games, young love emerges at the high school level. The protagonists are Gabe, a 17 year-old son of a gangster living with police officers. A Juilliard quality pianist, he is on his way to New York City or Harvard. Yasmine is just 14, a child with potential talent as a singer. She is fascinated with opera and invites Gabe in a coffee shop to share tickets with her. Can love blossom between a Catholic son of a gangster and a protected Persian Jewish girl?
The detective who has opened his home to Gabe is investigating two suicides at an elite private school. The hallways of the school harbor a full range of cheating, thievery, drugs, sex, guns, and other intrigue probably predictable in a world of too much money and too little supervision. The story focuses on a gang led by the big man on campus, who has an arm full of scholarships to name brand universities.
Gabe and Yasmine fall passionately in love. Their reactions feel like those of mature people. The gang focuses first on Gabe, then on Yasmine, as the detective and his team are circling on the odd connections between the gang and the unexplained suicides.
Ms. Kellerman, as always, provides a thoroughly enjoying read, as love and danger collide. The dangers are fearsome as the gang, the gangster trained young man, police on the prowl, a Persian family intent on protecting the innocence of their daughter from the heathen boy, parents of the gang members who will spend any amount on lawyers to protect the honor of their persecuted offspring, all collide. Can these strands be brought together?
In the midst of enjoying such a finely written story, I always search for the keys to successful fiction writing. In this case, there were many, including the art of bridging time and space with a seamless flow of story. On the other hand, the description of love between 17 and 14 year-olds seemed forced, as did the seemingly constant description of erections and oral sex.
Is this necessary in the context of a thought-provoking story? I wondered closing the back cover, satisfied with an enjoyable experience.
Warms, Cym
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