A Decent Ransom
Ivana Hruba
Reviewed by Mary Aycock
Ivana Hruba fled the Czech Republic in 1983 by crossing the Alps on
foot. Ivana is now a teacher in Australia, where she lives with her
husband, two sons and a menagerie of cuddly animals. This is her first
adult novel.
Although this story is written by an author in Australia, I kept
envisioning various landscapes in the U.S. that I am familiar with.
Pristine Mountain could be a mountain in rural Colorado or Arkansas or
many of the other states in America. It has universal appeal in that
the characters could be seen walking down ANY road…maybe even YOUR
road! Unfortunately, lives like the ones she writes about are lived in
many places in the world. Any truck stop could be the one written about
in her story. You want to take a second look at those around you, while
you wonder what the truth in their life is. What could they be hiding
from you? Surely not a kidnapping?
Where to begin telling the tale that our author tells so well? With
the boy? With the kidnap victim? With the victim’s husband? With the
kidnapper? The author spins a tale of suspense and intrigue, drawing us
farther and farther into the story, until we realize that she has
really taken us on a ride on a huge Mobius Strip. If you are not
familiar with a Mobius strip, a model can easily be created by taking a
paper strip and giving it a half-twist, and then joining the ends of
the strip together to form a single strip. Now, take a pencil and put
it down on any spot on the strip…and draw a line the length of the
strip. Your line will go round and round, on the outside AND inside of
the strip, until it meets itself once again!
This is what the author does as she weaves the stories of the
character’s lives! She begins with one character and tells the story
from that point of view. Then she steps into the skin of another
character and tells you their tale. She goes on and on and little by
little, you eventually find that you are in posession of the WHOLE
story and you are totally stunned by the truth of it all. You didn’t
count on this, you tell yourself. This can’t be what happened! So, you
skip back a few pages and read that part again! Yes, she really DID say
that! You read on!
This is the story of a kidnapping gone wrong. Well, the author says
on the cover of the book that it is “A story of a kidnapping gone
right.” So, where does the truth lie? Remember that I said that you
would eventually have the WHOLE truth? This is a story well worth
reading to get at that entire truth.
Okay, I will tell you about the boy. He is the innocent young
brother of the kidnapper and because he goes along with everything his
brother lays out for him to do, he in that sense also becomes a
kidnapper. He has been through so much in his life, it is a sad
statement to say that he is the bad guy! You want to protect him from
his brother, but you find that is not possible. Actually named Phoebus,
he tells the kidnap victim that his name is Ricky. As you learn more
about him, you wish you could hit the “restart button” and give the
poor boy a better life. But, there he is, that incredibly young…and a
kidnapper. He becomes the main caretaker for the kidnap victim and he
sees her alternately as an Angel, a Madonna, a Warrior Queen and his
unwilling victim.
Phoebus/Ricky’s older brother, Kenny, only wants to make enough
money from the victim’s husband so that he can afford the time and
attention of his lady-love, who also happens to be the lady-love of
several other people in the story.
All of the characters flit in and out of each other’s lives, all
interconnected along that Mobius Strip. We learn that the kidnapper’s
lady-love is involved in another crime and is trying to keep herself
and HER lady-love hidden from the authorities. To what lengths will she
go to keep them from being discovered? How much will she sacrifice to
keep her crime under wraps?
The Victim. Aaaaaah…the victim! We struggle along with her, not
knowing from day to day what her future will hold. The boy seems to
hold her life in his hands. Will he be strong enough to go against his
brother’s rules and actually help her survive? Will he be smart enough
to turn a kidnapping gone wrong into a kidnapping gone right?
Then we have the victim’s husband. Why has he not paid the ransom?
What twists and turns are involved with him and the other characters?
So, we return to the Mobius strip. Each character is on that strip,
and their lives all bump into each other in the most unusual ways. What
a delicious tale this author weaves for us. What a wonderful slippery
slope we must climb to get to the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. How delightful it is to find the true hero of the story!
I hope you take the time to hunt down “A Decent Ransom” and make it
a part of your life! You will come away with a whole new perspective on
kidnappings! So, come ride the Mobius Strip of the author’s
imagination!
It is a trip well worth taking!