Captives - Hardcover

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Dividing his tale close to the exact middle, Pow contrasts public and private accounts of an American tourist family's kidnapping by Caribbean guerillas. Having reread his father's best-selling diary in the first half of the book and finding it wanting, 16-year-old Martin, who is still withdrawn and suffering from the experience, composes a third-person version from a more private and personal point of view. It is also a psychologically probing look at the events—giving the kidnappers as well as their victims human characters and histories. Like Louise Moeri's The Forty-third War (1989) and Peter Dickinson's AK (1992), this will help readers see beyond conventional views of Third World rebels as faceless terrorists; it is the fictional island's power-hungry strongman and his ally, an amoral agent of an American mining company, who are the villains here, responsible for this compelling novel's sad, violent ending. Peters, John
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Grade 7 Up–Teenage Martin, son of Tony and Carol, watches his dad being interviewed on TV about the book Tony has written. It is based on journals he kept when his family and another couple and their teenage daughter, Louise, were held captive by antigovernment rebels while vacationing in the Caribbean. Now, following a violent rescue that resulted in Louise's death, Tony is accused of exploiting this tragedy for profit. Martin revisits the experience by reading the published journal (Part I). He then fills in the gaps with the many details that his father missed, which makes up Part II. With a Lost-like cover and this exciting premise, the book might have some appeal. But the story, mostly told in a third-person omniscient voice, is disjointed. Chunks of backstory about Tony and Carol's second son, Nick, seem irrelevant. The kidnappers' pasts, while vividly described, are too abbreviated to carry much emotional weight. Martin ineffectually lusts for Louise, but she develops a sexual relationship with Eduardo, one of the kidnappers. But here again, the heat just isn't on the page. One gets the general idea, but stereotypes of a rapacious dictator supported by a corrupt American corporation, vagueness about key relationships, and discomfiting shifts in perspective dilute the novel's power.–Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
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