Creation Lake
The new Travelers crime thriller, tentatively titled The Stolen Art Two-Step, is off with the editor. I’ll find out what he has to say in a few weeks, always something insightful and on point.
In the meantime, I just read Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (2024). Sadie Smith (an alias) is a private industry spy sent to France to stir up trouble among small farmers who fear corporate farming and the loss of water rights. Why? That’s beyond her paygrade and thus unknown to us. To accomplish her goals, she worms her way into a countryside anarchist commune to manipulate them into organizing a protest that she hopes will blow up. Everything is going to plan until her orders change at the last minute, which leads to surprising results.
This book is told in the first person, so we’re inside Sadie’s head as she manipulates and reacts to the other characters. We see them through her, so her judgments and misjudgments inform how we understand the action.
Creation Lake is on the literary side of what I review here and has a philosophical angle that’s important to making sense of the ending, but it’s still an enjoyable read.
Happy reading!
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