AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

In Blaine’s mystery-thriller, a veteran of the first U.S.-Iraq war is recruited to spy on a Paris-based artist’s cult.

It’s the 1990s, and Amadeo Effscott—not his real name—is a 20-something informant for the United States government, which is investigating the possible terrorist activities of charismatic artist Sean Dorian Knight. The novel is presented as a series of classified documents allegedly recovered in the real-life 2022 FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. In a series of accounts to French police, person-of-interest reports, and dispatches from Amadeo’s handler, readers learn that the informant is torn between his allegiance to the United States and his feelings of genuine friendship for the people in Dorian’s secretive American Renaissance organization. Much of his attachment to the latter seems to stem from his sexual obsession with poet and artist Lilah al-Hazara, a member of Dorian’s inner circle. Amadeo also appears to be suffering from the effects of traumas incurred during his military service in Iraq, which his handler exploits and that may also be affecting his reliability—as an agent and as a narrator. Although he’s tasked with killing Dorian, he tries to reform the leader, instead. Blaine’s novel has a compelling setup. However, readers will find that the details of the cult’s operations are rather fuzzy, largely because Amadeo himself gets lost in a fog of conspiracies disseminated by government agents and potential terrorists. Also, several characters feel underdeveloped, aside from their most basic function in the plot. However, the rumors that Amadeo encounters have a diverting religious overtone: Several main characters come from Muslim backgrounds, and, according to Effscott’s handler, the cult’s central lore involves a “Muslim Jesus” figure. In an additional twist for American literature aficionados, the story is laced with allusions to F. Scott Fitzgerald, including Effscott’s cover name, the presence of a character called the “Sheik of Araby”—a song quoted in The Great Gatsby (1925)—and even the author’s pseudonym (and Effscott’s real name), which references the protagonist of This Side of Paradise (1920).

A spy tale with an intriguing premise that’s bogged down by ill-defined conspiracies and one-note characters.