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Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer
Diana Abu-Jaber continues to polish her craft as a storyteller par excellence.
Writing with artful prose, well-integrated scientific facts, an understanding of criminology details, and a gift for creating fascinating characters, she has, in Origin: A Novel, created a story that is not only a superb novel, but also one that is bound to please a wide readership. ORIGIN is a winner at every level, a novel that exercises the brain while exploring the heart.
Lena Dawson is a young woman who despite minimal formal education has become a successful interpreter of fingerprints with the criminal investigation unit in Syracuse, NY. As the novel begins she is separated from a fractured marriage with police officer Charlie, a raucous womanizer who continues to ’stalk’ Lena despite their obvious incompatibility.
Lena now lives a lone Spartan life, one more committed to her job than to a social existence. Her knowledge and sharp intuition in breaking a case of criminal implications in an apparent SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) case has sharpened her interest in other unexplained cases, and her extraordinary investigative gifts fall into place with the rather sudden onset of multiple SIDS cases.
Her acumen and skills uncover the possibility of the implication of a serial killer who may be using poisoning techniques to murder infants of a strangely random assortment of couples - a discovery that results in paparazzi-type response from the media.
Lena’s only consolation and warmth in the frozen wintry Syracuse is her alignment with the tender, caring detective Keller, and as they both pursue the clues and investigation of the morbidly fascinating serial killer, each of them uncover and share personal demons that have shaped their lives.
Running skillfully alongside the linear investigation of the crimes is a detailed and touching story of Lena’s search for her birth parents (she was ‘adopted’ by an odd couple as a very young child but has never felt a genetic connection: her dreams of her true beginnings are bizarre yet meaningful).
It is the parallel investigation that introduces many fascinating characters and the discovery of a shaded past that has created a woman fearful of connecting in meaningful relationships. And it is to Abu-Jaber’s credit that she intertwines both of these highly inventive stories so adroitly that they ultimately blend with a surprising, highly satisfactory ending.
Reading Abu-Jaber is a feast for the mind and the heart. Her imagery is richly colorful, cinematically unfolding the frozen landscape of Syracuse as the perfect setting for the two enigmas that eventually melt as they are resolved. This is a writer of enormous talent who has given us a multi-layered novel as fine as any in recent years. Where will her rich imagination and brilliant prose take us next?
Stumble it!
