The Black Hawk
By Joanna Bourne
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: November 1, 2011
Five Stars
They met in Paris when they were little more than children, but
there was nothing childish about Justine DeCabrillac and Adrian Hawkhurst even
then. She was an established agent of the French Police Secréte mentored by the
Madame of a brothel; he was a reformed thief, a killer, and a newly named agent
of the British service in France. Briefly they are partners in a dangerous
venture, and then over more than two decades Owl and Hawker are friends,
lovers, and enemies, but always there is a connection between them that neither
can deny.
Twenty four years
later, Justine has opened a shop in London, hoping she has left her past behind
her. But when a couple of unsolved murders capture her attention, she knows she
has information that Adrian, who has become head of the British Intelligence
Service, needs to know. Making her way to him in pouring rain, she is stabbed
by an unknown assailant with a poisoned knife belonging to Adrian.
Adrian saves her
life, literally at one point giving her his breath. But someone is out to
destroy them both, and finding this enemy will require all their skills and
their trust in one another. Only when they have defeated this last, mutual
enemy can they enjoy the future they’ve been waiting a lifetime to begin.
Sometime you read a
book that gets everything right, the big things like characters and plot and
setting and the smaller things like thematic threads than run through the story
like ribbons of light, sentences that make you catch your breath at their
perfection, and scenes that linger in the mind almost with the richness of
actual experience. The Black Hawk is such a book.
I’ve been convinced of
Jo Bourne’s genius since I first read The
Spymaster’s Lady. I read My Lord and
Spymaster and The Forbidden Rose
and found them compelling, memorable, and significant, but I think The Black Hawk is Bourne’s finest book
yet. It is part historical thriller and part romance, and both parts are the
work of a writer who practices her craft with unfaltering excellence. She
constructs a plot that keeps readers turning pages, reluctant to stop as
tension ratchets with every turn. She creates characters whose lives are alien
to her readers but whose humanity is so deep and layered that readers know them
and are emotionally invested in seeing them safe and happy.
The novel can be read as a standalone. Fans of the series will
be pleased to see some characters from other books, but the focus of this book
is unswervingly on Justine and Adrian, their stories and their relationship
over the greater part of their lives. Mentally
and physically, they belong together. “They knew even the small crevices of one
another’s minds,” Justine thinks at one point. And later, “The body has
memories deeper than thought. Her body remembered him.”
I am a lover of lyrical prose. I revel in the power of the precise
word and the musicality of a beautifully crafted sentence. I also recognize the
power of simplicity that can pierce the heart with its truth. Bourne gives
readers lyricism and simplicity in passages like this one in which Justine
expresses her fear: “I am overwhelmed by a knowledge of mortality tonight. We
dance upon the edge of the abyss, and tonight, I cannot stop myself from
looking down.”
This is one you don’t want to miss, my friends. I have no doubt
that we’ll see it listed among the best books of 2011 on dozens of lists in the
next few months, but The Black Hawk is more than a book for this year. It’s a
book for many seasons, a book for as many years as are covered in the story—and
beyond.
What’s the last book you read that made you want to put it in
readers’ hands, saying, “This is wonderful. You should read it”?
