MONTENEGRO

by Starling Lawrence

reviewed by Mike Crowl

Montenegro has been touted by overseas reviewers as a top-class piece of historical fiction. Lawrence's writing is stylish and detailed, the characters are full of surprises, and his historical background usually informs without seeming like a history lesson. From this book it is easily seen that the horrors of the recent Serbian crisis are nothing new - in fact, the roots of the problem go back for centuries, and lie not merely in the passions of the various peoples who inhabit the region, but also in the endless attempts by different nations at permanent acquisition of the land. The story concerns an Englishman, Auberon Harwell, who, under the guise of a botanist, is sent into the region as a spy. Harwell is man with some strengths, but a larger number of weaknesses, and it is through the latter particularly that he begins to understand the people he has come to live amongst. It is also a story of the way his romance with an English woman teaching in a girls' academy conflicts with his desire for his host's wife. Though one reviewer has asserted that Montenegro is like the adventure stories of Kipling and Rider Haggard, I think the comparison is not quite valid; there is a much more overt eroticism in it - and tragedy - than either of those authors would have allowed. Nevertheless, for the way in which it takes the reader into an unfamiliar and exciting world, it comfortably stands alongside those their books.

Published in paperback by Black Swan, 1998

Back to the Index