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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth All Your Efforts, Mr McNabb, 29 Nov 2011
This review is from: 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.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Surprising little gem, 28 Jan 2012
This review is from: Olives (Kindle Edition)
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.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Tasting Olives, 6 Feb 2012
I make a personal rule that governs which books I will read. I only read travel literature or classics. If Olives is a modern classic set against a backdrop of Arabian adventure travel then so be it. It's a compelling read from start to finish. McNabb has clearly drawn on experiences of the Arab world that are both sympathetic to its beauty and incredulous of its madness. Anyone who has visited Jordan (or any other part of the Levant for that matter) will feel engagingly transported back to the land of Kings and crusaders. Reader who do not know the region should dive in willingly, McNabb is an entertaining tour guide and a witty host. Of course this is not a travel book. It's a "violent romance", it's an adventure book, it's a political/historical education, it's a humorous jab at modern personalities and the media industry, it's a love story and it's a movie script in the making. I read this book slowly. Good books deserve that. Although sometimes it was hard to slow down as McNabb peppers the ends of his chapters with tasty morsels of reader interest, some of them questions, some of them moralistic comments, some of them teasers. If you think you're going to be able to predict the ending then the last two chapters will leave you so utterly flushed that you won't remember what you thought the final outcome was going to be. So once again, Olives is entertaining, sexy, funny, informative, thought provoking and above ALL --- it is fun. Surely that is what the joy of reading is all about isn't it? Adrian Bridgwater - London - February 2012
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