From Library Journal
Moore (The Statement, LJ 5/1/96) has again produced a deeply unsettling novel with a moral problem at its heart. When Napoleon III asks magician Henri Lambert to go to Algeria and put his powers in competition with an Arab holy man threatening jihad against the French, Henri and his young wife Emmeline are indelibly altered. If Lambert succeeds in postponing the necessary (in colonial terms) intervention of the French army, does he save the lives of soldiers and Arab Algerians alike? Or do all just die a bit later? This is not merely an academic question, as anyone who reads the gruesome and horrifying news stories of slaughter in contemporary Algeria will attest. Moore does not altogether succeed in establishing the splendor of the 19th-century French court but is wonderful at the heat and beauty of Algeria and at the sensual lure of the French soldier who troubles Emmeline's contentment. Buy wherever Moore's many novels are read, which should be everywhere.
-?Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll., Bronxville, N.Y.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Emmeline Lambert is a French countrywoman married to a famous illusionist. When her husband is sought by Napoleon III to overwhelm Arab leaders with his magic, her life goes from the simplicity of the country to the court of royalty to the deserts of Algeria. When Lindsay Duncan reads, the facts of history and the fictional characters become so real that one believes the tape to be a factual account. She is perfect in diction, in language and in her understanding of what this well-written story really means. J.P. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award Winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
