Seven Times Dead

Near the start of Chaney’s disappointing sophomore effort (after The Ragged End of Nowhere, which won the Tony Hillerman Prize), salesman Richard Slade, who peddles his American company’s pesticides in Europe, decides to visit his friend Septimus Morgan in Nice, France. While he’s waiting in a bar for Septimus, a woman sits on the stool next to him and asks for a cigarette. When Slade refuses to give her one, she sticks a gun in his side and repeats her request. She soon leaves the bar, but not before slipping a flash drive in his pocket. This puzzling episode is followed by a rude visit from the French police, who ask about the woman in the bar. Slade says nothing about the mysterious flash drive and begins a series of misadventures in which he’s caught in a kidnapping attempt, seeks help from the U.S. consul, and is taken captive by a brutal smuggler. He also becomes a pawn in a high-stakes game involving a Russian criminal gang known as the Rising Sun, the British Secret Intelligence Service, the CIA, and the French police. Chaney’s Kafkaesque tale never manages to gather much steam as Slade struggles to escape and to find answers. [em](Nov.) [/em]