Olives [Kindle Edition]

I do not know Alexander McNabb, but like him I am a Middle East 'veteran' and long-term resident of Dubai. I am also a regular reader of McNabb's entertaining blog and through this have followed his trials and tribulations in completing Olives and getting it published. So I was delighted to be able to obtain my (Kindle) edition and dive in.

Olives is at heart a love story, wrapped in a thriller and set against the backdrop of Palestinian-Israeli conflict in current day Jordan. So it is not surprising that agents and publishers struggled to pigeon-hole it and I do worry (as a marketing man) where it will find its 'target market'. Which is a shame as it is an excellent read and deserves a wide audience.

The main character is Paul Stokes, a journalist for a contract publisher who is sent to work on an in-house magazine for a Ministry in Jordan (McNabb understands contract publishing from his day job and, while it plays only a minor role in the story, writes well about it). He falls in love with a Palestinian colleague, Aisha, who is a member of a powerful business family. Both main characters are very convincingly portrayed - I fell in love with Aisha myself! The story is told in the first person from Stokes' point of view, which presents the challenge of maintaining a consistent 'voice' for the character, but McNabb manages this with aplomb and only the occasional falter (e.g. Stokes is a Middle East neophyte but unhesitatingly identifies a teaboy in a Jordanian factory as Egyptian). I found the secondary characters to be a little less convincing, and the Scandinavian neighbour Lars verges on a stereotype, but this in no way impaired my enjoyment. Stokes is blackmailed into co-operating with a British intelligence officer who is trying to influence the outcome of bidding for a water privatisation project against Aisha's family and so is pulled into a 'web of intrique' (to use a cliche that McNabb himself would avoid like the plague!). Stokes is never quite sure who is telling him the truth and McNabb twists the reader's sympathies one way and then the other right up to the shocking denouement. The Jordanian background is described in rich detail and McNabb clearly knows the country well, although I did feel that he occasionally assumed too much knowledge of Arabic mores for the casual (i.e. not Middle East based) reader. But these are minor quibbles indeed.

All in all, this is a terrific first (published) novel. I read 'Olives' soon after finishing 'Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet' (to which it bears certain similarities - love story, thriller, strange land) and enjoyed it every bit as much. Which is praise indeed.

Like many of the reviewers here, i personally know the author. In my opinion, its harder to impress your immediate circle of friends because of the expectation of quality. Alexander is held in high regard for many other skills and I hoped the book would be to the same standards.

What i enjoyed most was that I clearly got a sense that the author had done his research and knew the region he talked about, without having to wade through long historical references or interrupting the speed of the story. This is pretty difficult in a short novel.

The characters were sufficiently developed enough as well for me to feel empathy and i was pleased to note that there would be more books featuring one of the main actors.

The story has a great believable plot, centred around the issue of water availability in jordan. As its a short novel, i really wouldn't want to go into the details further here as part of the skill of the author is how he weaves different sub plots around this. There is a lovely integration of a blossoming of love which furthers the development of the story and gives the reader another thread to follow with passion. You really do want to find out where its going to end up.

I have to say i was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it especially as i read very little fiction compared to other genres. This is the kind of book you want to give to your friends to read so buy two.

This book was chosen by our book group because the author will be attending the Emirates International Festival of Literature in March. We were interested in it because it is set in Jordan and covers aspects of Palestinian/Israeli issues, particularly the potential shortage of water in the area.

Paul Stokes arrives in Jordan to take up a new job - publishing a magazine for a recently formed Jordanian Ministry. He is helped to find his feet by a colleague, Aisha Dajani, a stunningly beautiful young woman to whom he is instantly drawn.

I wasn't sure whether to like Paul, he was a bit of a damp fish at times but he was also under a lot of stress. Caught between the Dajani family and the British Consulate representative, Gerald Lynch, he finds himself at the centre of negotiations for control of water resources that had been taken over by Israeli absorbtion of Jordanian land. The Jordanians needed to retrieve some of this water but this brought with it the alarming potential for causing a water war.

Paul becomes very close to Aisha, whose brother Daoud is leading the Jordanian bid. Their family was originally from Palestine and bore both mental and physical scars from their losses since 1948. I enjoyed this view of a fragmented Palestinian family, mostly living away from their home country, but constantly drawn back there to an old olive farm and elderly relatives.

My first Kindle book and a good read. A thrilleresque style with local flavour. Recommended.