The Good Son in Around the World in 80 Books

Apr 10, 2023 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: novels, thriller

This quasi-thriller is a tough one to evaluate -- on the one hand, I found it entirely readable and even engrossing at times, but the moment one really starts to think about the characters, it's absurd. One protagonist is a woman who grew up in an American circus, married a Pakistani man from a prominent family, disguised herself as a boy to travel across Soviet Central Asia with a Sufi mystic/storytelling, then to Mecca, picking up an encyclopedic knowledge of the Quran and hadiths, wrote books This quasi-thriller is a tough one to evaluate -- on the one hand, I found it entirely readable and even engrossing at times, but the moment one really starts to think about the characters, it's absurd. One protagonist is a woman who grew up in an American circus, married a Pakistani man from a prominent family, disguised herself as a boy to travel across Soviet Central Asia with a Sufi mystic/storytelling, then to Mecca, picking up an encyclopedic knowledge of the Quran and hadiths, wrote books about both resulting in fame and fatwa, then disappeared to Switzerland to become a Jungian analyst and dream interpreter. Her son is another outsized protagonist, a Special Forces super-soldier who's part of a kind of Seal Team Six unit, and oh yes, he was also a legendary mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The third protagonist is a young Vietnamese-American woman who works at the NSA listening to intercepts in Dari, Pashto, and Arabic -- all of which she's somehow achieved native proficiency in despite never having travelled or lived in any of the relevant regions...

The story revolves around the mother's attempt to put together a peace conference in northern Pakistan, and the group's kidnapping by Taliban. The son then launches a crazy plot to rescue her, which involves deceiving the American intelligence agencies into believing that Pakistani nuclear material has been stolen. This all requires just the right contacts and connections, which of course he has. Around this ridiculous thriller plot is a ton of backstory and commentary, much of which is extremely well done -- the settings and social structures all come alive, which go a long way toward making this worth reading. Even the day-to-day life of a federal bureaucrat in the burbs of DC is convincingly done (speaking as someone who lives the DC burbs and knows plenty of federal bureaucrats).

The story toggles between the three protagonists and manages to slowly build momentum as the story heads toward its unlikely climax. This includes a twist at the end that I'm sure every reader will see coming, so it's not nearly as effective as intended. I suppose readers will enjoy this to the extent they are willing to indulge the author in some wild contrivances, as well as characters who can stray into being mouthpieces for ideas rather than fully-fledged individuals. ...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Saima rated it it was amazing

Shelves: library-book, favorites, mystery, 2013

Michael Gruber's "Good Son" is essentially classified as belonging to the mystery/suspense/thriller genre. It is after all about a kidnapping and a secret rescue mission. However it is much more than that! I can't believe how anyone can write such a novel - it simply defies being classified. For anyone who wants to know the truth about what is happening in the world today, read this book. Gruber even ventures to offer some solutions. Anyone curious about why Afghanistan and Pakistan and how they ...more

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