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Caught
Caught begins with a prison break. Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, has escaped his cell and sprinted to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When finally he reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction.
Moore's most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.
Moore's most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.
314 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
About the author
Lisa Moore
133 books283 followersLisa Moore has written two collections of stories, Degrees of Nakedness and Open, as well as a novel, Alligator.
Open and Alligator were both nominated for the Giller Prize. Alligator won the Commonwealth Prize for the Canadian Caribbean Region and the ReLit Award, and Open won the Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Prize for Short Fiction.
Lisa has also written for television, radio, magazines (EnRoute, The Walrus and Chatelaine) and newspapers (The Globe and Mail and The National Post).
Lisa has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She also studied at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she became a member of The Burning Rock Collective, a group of St. John's writers.
Open and Alligator were both nominated for the Giller Prize. Alligator won the Commonwealth Prize for the Canadian Caribbean Region and the ReLit Award, and Open won the Canadian Authors' Association Jubilee Prize for Short Fiction.
Lisa has also written for television, radio, magazines (EnRoute, The Walrus and Chatelaine) and newspapers (The Globe and Mail and The National Post).
Lisa has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She also studied at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where she became a member of The Burning Rock Collective, a group of St. John's writers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 322 reviews
March 10, 2013
Caught frustrated me, made me smile, awed me, but mostly frustrated me.
Lisa Moore is a fantastic writer, and I think her skills are far better suited to a meditation like February than an ostensible adventure like Caught. Don't get me wrong - the writing in this book is astonishing. Moore has an ability to capture instants like no other author I've read. She's perceptive, incisive, unsentimental, and her ability to capture how we actually experience time - in sputters, jolts, and drawn out eternities - is jaw dropping. She firmly places the reader in time without showing off (I hate it when you can practically hear an author shouting "look at the research I've done!!"), just dropping tastes here and there. You find yourself immersed in 1978 Canada through jean jackets, station wagons, and my favourite, Red Rose Tea figurines.
So why was I frustrated? One problem is that in Caught, Moore's chosen to tell a crime adventure story, exactly the kind of tale we might see ratcheted up on steroids and laughing gas in the hands of Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen. But there's a disconnect between the way Moore writes and the story she's trying to tell. The same little snapshots of thought, observation, and memory that are a hallmark of Moore's writing get in the way of telling a good crime adventure. I was reminded of Zeno's dichotomy paradox (please don't think I'm trying to show off - this actually helped me figure out why I found the action unsatisfying). The paradox runs like this: in order to travel one mile, you first have to travel half a mile. But before you travel half a mile, you first have to travel a quarter of a mile, and so on to infinity. The idea is that there are infinite steps, so you'll never be able to travel the distance. In Caught, Moore continually breaks up the narrative into these little quanta of observation, and they pile up, one on top another, until you have a great description of everything that's happening, but no sense of ACTION.
Also, I desperately wanted to get to know Slaney, the protagonist, but Moore keeps him at an emotional distance from the reader. Sure, I understand his motivations. He doesn't want to go back to prison, he wants to make this last big score, he loves and misses his old girlfriend. But I never feel what he feels. I want to root for the guy, but I don't know who he is. He comes from a huge family, he's a great sailor, he likes pot, but what makes him laugh? What makes him angry? What are his dreams, when all this is over? I waited and hoped, but Slaney never revealed himself.
In the end, I don't think Caught works. The writing is good, piece by piece, but it doesn't hang together as a whole. I would have given it 2 stars, but there are so many wonderfully crafted bits that I had to bump it up to 3. Still, I was really looking forward to this, and I was disappointed.
Lisa Moore is a fantastic writer, and I think her skills are far better suited to a meditation like February than an ostensible adventure like Caught. Don't get me wrong - the writing in this book is astonishing. Moore has an ability to capture instants like no other author I've read. She's perceptive, incisive, unsentimental, and her ability to capture how we actually experience time - in sputters, jolts, and drawn out eternities - is jaw dropping. She firmly places the reader in time without showing off (I hate it when you can practically hear an author shouting "look at the research I've done!!"), just dropping tastes here and there. You find yourself immersed in 1978 Canada through jean jackets, station wagons, and my favourite, Red Rose Tea figurines.
So why was I frustrated? One problem is that in Caught, Moore's chosen to tell a crime adventure story, exactly the kind of tale we might see ratcheted up on steroids and laughing gas in the hands of Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen. But there's a disconnect between the way Moore writes and the story she's trying to tell. The same little snapshots of thought, observation, and memory that are a hallmark of Moore's writing get in the way of telling a good crime adventure. I was reminded of Zeno's dichotomy paradox (please don't think I'm trying to show off - this actually helped me figure out why I found the action unsatisfying). The paradox runs like this: in order to travel one mile, you first have to travel half a mile. But before you travel half a mile, you first have to travel a quarter of a mile, and so on to infinity. The idea is that there are infinite steps, so you'll never be able to travel the distance. In Caught, Moore continually breaks up the narrative into these little quanta of observation, and they pile up, one on top another, until you have a great description of everything that's happening, but no sense of ACTION.
Also, I desperately wanted to get to know Slaney, the protagonist, but Moore keeps him at an emotional distance from the reader. Sure, I understand his motivations. He doesn't want to go back to prison, he wants to make this last big score, he loves and misses his old girlfriend. But I never feel what he feels. I want to root for the guy, but I don't know who he is. He comes from a huge family, he's a great sailor, he likes pot, but what makes him laugh? What makes him angry? What are his dreams, when all this is over? I waited and hoped, but Slaney never revealed himself.
In the end, I don't think Caught works. The writing is good, piece by piece, but it doesn't hang together as a whole. I would have given it 2 stars, but there are so many wonderfully crafted bits that I had to bump it up to 3. Still, I was really looking forward to this, and I was disappointed.
May 21, 2013
Don’t wait to pick up a copy of Lisa Moore’s new novel, Caught. It may strike you as a departure in terms of subject matter from her earlier work—if not for its high literary quality it might inadvertently be slotted simply as a detective novel--but anyone who loves good writing will revel in the novel for many reasons. Each sentence in Caught is so carefully constructed—each word has clearly been chosen with thought and meticulous care, and yet not so much as to negatively affect the pacing. Things I loved: the sharp, close observation, the attention to detail. The way the care so obvious in the writing underscores the naiveté and relative looseness, almost carelessness of the central character, Slaney, and his gut level determination to trust that all will be well. The skillful use of irony that lets the reader but not Slaney in to the ‘real reality’ in the world outside his head. Slaney’s shake-your-head type innocence in spite of his recent experience being incarcerated for four years before his escape. His trusting, having to trust, in a kind of fatal ingenuousness--believing he is not detected, doing what Hearn tells him to do even as readers learn that his childhood, high school, and crime buddy Hearn is not always reliable. The tremendous care Moore take with the language, the descriptions, the order in which information is revealed.
The percentage of writers in Canada (or anywhere) who make it to star status is relatively small. True literary merit comes from the writing, book by book, the building blocks of a stellar reputation--the consistency, the superior control of the narrative. The high and consistent skill level in each book, shown again, and yet again. Fine writing, engaging prose, beauty of the literary turn of phrase. (“The darkness seemed to charge across the prairie toward them, deepening as it came.” Or, “The leaves of the lupins chussled like the turning pages of a glossy magazine.”) (The ability to handle suspense, plot, character. (“He’d broken out of prison and he was going back to Columbia. He’d learned from that first trip down there, the trip that landed him in jail, that the most serious mistakes are the easiest to make. They are mistakes that stand in the centre of an empty field and cy out for love.”) Moore does it all.
Moore draws her characters quickly, effectively, memorably. Description never weighs down the prose: there is always just enough, sharply, accurately observed. Consider this: “Hearn’s freckles and a red bandana he had knotted around his throat. He was skinnier and more muscled and he’d let his fiery hair spring out in an afro. He looked high and a little haunted.”
Or: “There was a couple making out farther down the platform. The girl had on a long crushed-velvet coat with fake fur trim and a red tube top and denim miniskirt. The coat was slipping off her shoulder and she was wearing white go-go boots and her leg was hooked over the guy’s hip and his hand was disappearing under the hem of her little skirt.”
The word ‘mastery’ comes to mind…the ability to move in a new direction without faltering, without misstep —Moore engages and keeps her reader close, with her, word by word, comma by comma.
If one of the things that distinguishes literature from non-literature is that it is at least as much about how it happens as what happens in terms of action, then there is no question of Caught’s place. One could read Caught simply for the narrative line, but an even richer reading is a close one, one that looks at that how.
Another is the level of meaning available to readers whose tattered copy of Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer is close by. Read for a plethora of rich themes involving family, roots, love, community. I am reminded of Northrop Frye’s seeing story in literature as a move either from integration to isolation, or isolation to integration, and the toll taken on a character as s/he moves from one to the other.
In Moore’s prose here and in her other books there is concision, clarity, care. Not to mention a great capacity for compassion, and humour.
The percentage of writers in Canada (or anywhere) who make it to star status is relatively small. True literary merit comes from the writing, book by book, the building blocks of a stellar reputation--the consistency, the superior control of the narrative. The high and consistent skill level in each book, shown again, and yet again. Fine writing, engaging prose, beauty of the literary turn of phrase. (“The darkness seemed to charge across the prairie toward them, deepening as it came.” Or, “The leaves of the lupins chussled like the turning pages of a glossy magazine.”) (The ability to handle suspense, plot, character. (“He’d broken out of prison and he was going back to Columbia. He’d learned from that first trip down there, the trip that landed him in jail, that the most serious mistakes are the easiest to make. They are mistakes that stand in the centre of an empty field and cy out for love.”) Moore does it all.
Moore draws her characters quickly, effectively, memorably. Description never weighs down the prose: there is always just enough, sharply, accurately observed. Consider this: “Hearn’s freckles and a red bandana he had knotted around his throat. He was skinnier and more muscled and he’d let his fiery hair spring out in an afro. He looked high and a little haunted.”
Or: “There was a couple making out farther down the platform. The girl had on a long crushed-velvet coat with fake fur trim and a red tube top and denim miniskirt. The coat was slipping off her shoulder and she was wearing white go-go boots and her leg was hooked over the guy’s hip and his hand was disappearing under the hem of her little skirt.”
The word ‘mastery’ comes to mind…the ability to move in a new direction without faltering, without misstep —Moore engages and keeps her reader close, with her, word by word, comma by comma.
If one of the things that distinguishes literature from non-literature is that it is at least as much about how it happens as what happens in terms of action, then there is no question of Caught’s place. One could read Caught simply for the narrative line, but an even richer reading is a close one, one that looks at that how.
Another is the level of meaning available to readers whose tattered copy of Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer is close by. Read for a plethora of rich themes involving family, roots, love, community. I am reminded of Northrop Frye’s seeing story in literature as a move either from integration to isolation, or isolation to integration, and the toll taken on a character as s/he moves from one to the other.
In Moore’s prose here and in her other books there is concision, clarity, care. Not to mention a great capacity for compassion, and humour.
December 4, 2013
I know Lisa Moore best as a short fiction author. I think that is a style that suits her perfectly, and one that she cannot completely shake off in this novel. The precision with which she writes, all the hidden metaphors and images throughout the story, they all look like they come out of short story. Only I’m not sure that it really works in a full scale novel. You just read novels a different way, or at least I do.
Sometimes there is paragraph that really catches your attention though, like this one about a hen while our protagonists are sitting in a crowded bar in Latin-America about to order some chicken for dinner:
The book opens with David Slaney escaping from prison, where he found himself due to a drug smuggling charge. His goal is to get back to his old friend and drug-smuggling buddy who avoided his stay in prison, take a boat to sea and start smuggling drugs again.
Slaney is pretty much like that hen testing the pool of light in front of him. He picks at something he thinks is important to try and snatch for himself, but he might end up being food for someone else’s gain. Also, his new-found freedom is in the spotlight of the police men who are searching for him, and it’s hard to taste freedom when you’re not sure it'll last. The relativity of ‘freedom’ is what’s being explored in this novel. Are we free, or are we only left to think that we are, like the bees in the quote below? Did we escape the net, are we stuck in it, or are we just not aware of how big the net is?
I’ve tried to put this book into a genre but that’s a pretty difficult thing to do. I saw some book blurbs about this being an adventure story, which I don’t think it is, because they tend to be much more fast-paced, nor does it have the twists and turns you’d expect.
The cover art doesn’t really work either, i don't know why it was chosen, it just doesn’t seem to fit with the book at all. Yes, there is a moment when a woman in a red bikini comes out of the sea, and the sea plays a very important role in the book both as the sea itself and as a symbol of freedom. But the atmosphere created with the art just doesn’t fit with the book in my humble opinion. It’s missing something simple to change the tone of it, to add some mystery, perhaps something like this?
The other thing that disturbed me was the lack of dialogue punctuation. Despite it being a direct dialogue there is no punctuation and no structure with everyone getting a line to themselves either, so it sometimes hard to keep track of who is saying what. Example:
Perhaps none of it matters; perhaps dialogue punctuation deserves some freedom to not be where they are supposed to be too, just like Slaney does.
Disclaimer: This book has been provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Sometimes there is paragraph that really catches your attention though, like this one about a hen while our protagonists are sitting in a crowded bar in Latin-America about to order some chicken for dinner:
Out on the cobblestones, a hen was testing the pool of light under the street lamp, touching it once and then again with its claw, jerking the inert lump of its blazingly white body forward by the neck, taking teensy steps. The hen froze in the centre of the light, full of trembling.
The book opens with David Slaney escaping from prison, where he found himself due to a drug smuggling charge. His goal is to get back to his old friend and drug-smuggling buddy who avoided his stay in prison, take a boat to sea and start smuggling drugs again.
Slaney is pretty much like that hen testing the pool of light in front of him. He picks at something he thinks is important to try and snatch for himself, but he might end up being food for someone else’s gain. Also, his new-found freedom is in the spotlight of the police men who are searching for him, and it’s hard to taste freedom when you’re not sure it'll last. The relativity of ‘freedom’ is what’s being explored in this novel. Are we free, or are we only left to think that we are, like the bees in the quote below? Did we escape the net, are we stuck in it, or are we just not aware of how big the net is?
The bees escaped, he said. Last summer. They get it in their heads.
You got them back? Slaney said.
I just had to wait for them to settle down somewhere, he said. Then I snuck up on them with a net.
I’ve tried to put this book into a genre but that’s a pretty difficult thing to do. I saw some book blurbs about this being an adventure story, which I don’t think it is, because they tend to be much more fast-paced, nor does it have the twists and turns you’d expect.
The cover art doesn’t really work either, i don't know why it was chosen, it just doesn’t seem to fit with the book at all. Yes, there is a moment when a woman in a red bikini comes out of the sea, and the sea plays a very important role in the book both as the sea itself and as a symbol of freedom. But the atmosphere created with the art just doesn’t fit with the book in my humble opinion. It’s missing something simple to change the tone of it, to add some mystery, perhaps something like this?
The other thing that disturbed me was the lack of dialogue punctuation. Despite it being a direct dialogue there is no punctuation and no structure with everyone getting a line to themselves either, so it sometimes hard to keep track of who is saying what. Example:
The things you see in retrospect, she said. He’s bald, for Christ’s sake. You don’t understand it, you couldn’t. You think I haven’t been in love? Slaney said.I’ve tried to figure out why Lisa Moore would have done this, but I can’t find a reason except to slow down the pace of the reading overall, which would be an odd reason anyway.
There were, at first, only two splats, the size of quarters, on the giant windshield and they trembled like things with a consciousness, things trying to hold together against a terrible force of entropy, and then they ran sideways and a drumming began on the roof and the world.
Perhaps none of it matters; perhaps dialogue punctuation deserves some freedom to not be where they are supposed to be too, just like Slaney does.
Disclaimer: This book has been provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
August 13, 2015
A classic cat-and-mouse story in which a Canadian drug smuggler escapes from prison to score another load of marijuana from Colombia. Moore paints Slaney and Hearn as “modern-day folk heroes,” and her writing elevates what could have been a plain crime story into real literature. From the title onwards, the book is heavy with foreshadowing as Moore exploits the dramatic irony that readers know the police have a sting operation trailing Slaney the whole way. Indeed, the most remarkable thing about the novel is how it maintains tension even though the outcome seems inevitable. “The best stories ... we’ve known the end from the beginning.” To my surprise, Caught is not just a good old-fashioned adventure story, but also has the epic, tragic weight of Homer’s Odyssey.
See my full review at Nudge.
See my full review at Nudge.
July 5, 2013
One thing that bothered me about this book was that I couldn't understand why anyone would want to go all the way down to Columbia to smuggle pot into Vancouver. Come on, really. There's practically a grow op on every block in Vancouver. This would make as much sense as Alberta buying its beef from Florida. Also, marijuana would be awkward to smuggle. Its stinks and its not worth a lot of money per pound. I don't understand why they weren't smuggling cocaine instead. Because of this I found it hard to believe Slaney's character. The fact that he would embark on such a stupid endeavour contradicted the author's attempt to make him appear intuitive and emotionally intelligent.
April 28, 2014
This book started out with some promise, and surprisingly, the author kept my attention throughout most of it. But I never felt like I got to know or understand the characters. And the dialogue was super distracting. People talked in a kind of shorthand that was hard to follow. Plus, the author didn't feel the need to use quotation marks, which drives me crazy! So, you're not always sure who's talking or if someone is even speaking aloud. Why do writers do that? It doesn't advance or add to the story. It's just an annoying stylistic quirk that some writers employ (i.e. Cormac McCarthy - but he can be forgiven for it because he's just so darn good).
May 25, 2015
I remember encountering two conflicting ideas a few years ago. First, someone quoted an old professor who had said something like, "There are too many great books in the world, more than you can read in a lifetime, to waste your time reading merely good books." I armed myself with this philosophy as a mental justification for not accepting the kinds of books that people like to recommend to me: My mother-in-law is a fan of historical romances and is forever saying things like, "This book started out okay but got a little better and I thought that you might like to read it Krista"; or my brother suggests thrillers or sci-fi ("Don't you ever just read a book for its plot, Krista?"), but with my quest for the great books, I have been able to politely point out that I have my own book pile to get through and no thanks to yours. Then I read another quote that challenged my notion of the great book: "Anyone who states 'I don't read genre fiction' is masking intellectual insecurity." That floored me, and being a person of moderate intellectual insecurity, I had to wonder, "Is it true? Do I focus my reading on literature because I don't want to be seen reading pulp? Or is it not a public unmasking that I'm afraid of, but rather a revelation of the lie I'm telling myself; am I not as smart as I think I am?" This reminds me of the movie A Fish Called Wanda, wherein Kevin Kline's Otto character was constantly reading and attempting to quote from Nietzsche (a name he can't even pronounce) and Jamie Lee Curtis, as Wanda, called him stupid anyway:
It should have been easy to just dismiss this "intellectual insecurity" business, but since it resonated with me, I needed to reconcile the notions of "great books" and "genre fiction" and concede that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, even if I have zero interest in Romances and Westerns and Sci-Fi and Crime…
And then Lisa Moore, quickly climbing to the top of my list of favourite authors, releases Caught; a book that, right from the garish, pulpy cover, announces itself, unabashedly, as genre fiction: Crime; Adventure; Detection. With her mastery of mood and place and character, Moore elevates the cliché to the sublime, to the literary, and proves that a great book can be found within any framework.
We meet Slaney on the run, having just escaped from prison, and with Moore's customary layering of past and present, we quickly learn what crime he was convicted of (drug smuggling) and where he is heading (more drug smuggling). It's a wonder why someone would break out of prison just to commit another crime, but we soon realise that Slaney's youthful optimism, his hubris in the face of obvious obstacles, is his strength and his undoing.
The fact that Slaney trusts the people around him (despite discovering Hearn's many lies, despite his reservations about Carter and Ada, despite getting a bad feeling about Brophy) makes his eventual capture a foregone conclusion (also reinforced by the title Caught in bold red font on the cover). But as Patterson muses about the foregone conclusion of a bullfight:
Which begs the question: If we know how this story will end, what's the point of reading it? To which I would answer: It's about the journey. Within the framework of the Crime genre, Moore writes with her astonishing craftsmanship. The irony of the authorities knowing Slaney's every move, from having allowed the prison break to using ghost cars to pick him up while hitchhiking to move him along to his next criminal venture, was jarring and delicious; I found myself sympathising with and rooting for each side in this cat and mouse game; both Slaney and Patterson deserved to come out on top.
There is a chapter in Caught (Truth and Knowledge, pp 131-136) that perfectly illustrates what I think of as Lisa Moore's unique style. It relates two stories about Slaney as a twelve year old, two events that happened on the same afternoon: a baseball game that reveals his character and formative relationships with Hearn and Jennifer; and finding his parents with an encyclopedia salesman at home, which captures their hopes and expectations for him (and adds further irony since the reader knows Slaney becomes a convict). Although there is a definite sequence of events, ballgame then meeting the salesman, the stories are interspersed, a page about one, a couple paragraphs about the other, weaving back and forth, until the revelations seem larger than the sum of the two events. It's this type of alchemy in Moore's writing that make the journey more than worthwhile-- I could reread this chapter over and over again and not see how she accomplishes the magic of it.
Lisa Moore seems to address my own misgivings about genre fiction through the indiscriminate tastes of the youthful Ada:
The question I find intriguing is: Was Carter referring to just the Agatha Christies or to Ada's entire book pile as "those stupid things"? Is Lisa Moore purposefully conflating the classics with the genre fiction? With literary allusions throughout the book (Slaney could be thought of as a modern day Odysseus -- on his odyssey there are sirens, sea monsters [giant squid], a Cyclops [spy satellite] and a hurricane [sent from Poseidon because of his hubris ?]) and Hearn becoming a professor of literature, the author is acknowledging the literary while seeming to write an adventure tale. As in all great fiction, there is more to this book than meets the eye.
Although I did enjoy this journey very much, I didn't feel a perfect connection with the characters and plotline, and so I can't give Caught a perfect grade. I am delighted, however, to have been educated on how genre fiction can indeed contain great books.
Wanda: But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: [superior smile] Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it!
It should have been easy to just dismiss this "intellectual insecurity" business, but since it resonated with me, I needed to reconcile the notions of "great books" and "genre fiction" and concede that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive, even if I have zero interest in Romances and Westerns and Sci-Fi and Crime…
And then Lisa Moore, quickly climbing to the top of my list of favourite authors, releases Caught; a book that, right from the garish, pulpy cover, announces itself, unabashedly, as genre fiction: Crime; Adventure; Detection. With her mastery of mood and place and character, Moore elevates the cliché to the sublime, to the literary, and proves that a great book can be found within any framework.
We meet Slaney on the run, having just escaped from prison, and with Moore's customary layering of past and present, we quickly learn what crime he was convicted of (drug smuggling) and where he is heading (more drug smuggling). It's a wonder why someone would break out of prison just to commit another crime, but we soon realise that Slaney's youthful optimism, his hubris in the face of obvious obstacles, is his strength and his undoing.
This time they would do it right. He could feel luck like an animal presence, feral and watchful. He would have to coax it into the open. Grab it by the throat.
(H)e knew how to look at people so they could be who they were, which basically meant he had a capacity for trust. He thought of trust…as a vestigial organ, near his liver, swollen, threatening to burst. Maybe it would poison him. But it was also his special skill. His strength.
The fact that Slaney trusts the people around him (despite discovering Hearn's many lies, despite his reservations about Carter and Ada, despite getting a bad feeling about Brophy) makes his eventual capture a foregone conclusion (also reinforced by the title Caught in bold red font on the cover). But as Patterson muses about the foregone conclusion of a bullfight:
It was the certainty that satisfied some desire in the audience. The best stories, he thought, we've known the end from the beginning.
Which begs the question: If we know how this story will end, what's the point of reading it? To which I would answer: It's about the journey. Within the framework of the Crime genre, Moore writes with her astonishing craftsmanship. The irony of the authorities knowing Slaney's every move, from having allowed the prison break to using ghost cars to pick him up while hitchhiking to move him along to his next criminal venture, was jarring and delicious; I found myself sympathising with and rooting for each side in this cat and mouse game; both Slaney and Patterson deserved to come out on top.
There is a chapter in Caught (Truth and Knowledge, pp 131-136) that perfectly illustrates what I think of as Lisa Moore's unique style. It relates two stories about Slaney as a twelve year old, two events that happened on the same afternoon: a baseball game that reveals his character and formative relationships with Hearn and Jennifer; and finding his parents with an encyclopedia salesman at home, which captures their hopes and expectations for him (and adds further irony since the reader knows Slaney becomes a convict). Although there is a definite sequence of events, ballgame then meeting the salesman, the stories are interspersed, a page about one, a couple paragraphs about the other, weaving back and forth, until the revelations seem larger than the sum of the two events. It's this type of alchemy in Moore's writing that make the journey more than worthwhile-- I could reread this chapter over and over again and not see how she accomplishes the magic of it.
Lisa Moore seems to address my own misgivings about genre fiction through the indiscriminate tastes of the youthful Ada:
Ada was reading murder mysteries and Hemingway and she had a Fitzgerald and a really good Dashiell Hammett, she said, and when she was done she tossed them over the side…She'd read three Agatha Christies in two days…Ada closed the book and sat up straight, looking hard at the horizon as if she'd just figured something out.
The big reveal, she said. That's my favourite part.
Why are you reading those stupid things? Carter asked.
The question I find intriguing is: Was Carter referring to just the Agatha Christies or to Ada's entire book pile as "those stupid things"? Is Lisa Moore purposefully conflating the classics with the genre fiction? With literary allusions throughout the book (Slaney could be thought of as a modern day Odysseus -- on his odyssey there are sirens, sea monsters [giant squid], a Cyclops [spy satellite] and a hurricane [sent from Poseidon because of his hubris ?]) and Hearn becoming a professor of literature, the author is acknowledging the literary while seeming to write an adventure tale. As in all great fiction, there is more to this book than meets the eye.
Although I did enjoy this journey very much, I didn't feel a perfect connection with the characters and plotline, and so I can't give Caught a perfect grade. I am delighted, however, to have been educated on how genre fiction can indeed contain great books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2018
The first real page-turner for me in a long while. The prose is compelling, yet profoundly layered. The title itself is a sort of spoiler. "The best stories, he thought, we've known the end from the beginning." And yet, every moment is a surprise.
This book is particularly relevant as we are one week away from Cannabis becoming legal in Canada. What a huge waste of lives and resources, this ridiculous war on drugs.
This book is particularly relevant as we are one week away from Cannabis becoming legal in Canada. What a huge waste of lives and resources, this ridiculous war on drugs.
October 4, 2013
"Chussled". It's a lovely word.
As in, , "The leaves of the lupins chussled like the turning pages of a glossy magazine."
Descriptions are precise, unexpectedly shining light on small details, illuminating the reality. The reality is mundane and unforgiving, but Moore portrays her characters with sympathetic understanding.
Slaney is a man helplessly caught in his own stupidity. He got caught trying to smuggle marijuana into Newfoundland. Very little in the book actually took place in Newfoundland, but fog and boats still got squeezed in there. He gets out of jail in 4 years, and promptly embarks on renewed plans to smuggle in an even bigger haul of weed. Slaney never really seems to get that he is his own architect of folly. He was caught once, and swore they -- the system -- wouldn't break him. "He would not betray the innermost thing. He didn’t know exactly what the innermost thing was, except it hadn’t been touched in the four years of incarceration. Come and get me. They couldn’t get him. It fluttered in and out of view, the innermost thing, consequential and delicate." He is determined not to get caught again, but simultaneously believes getting caught again is inevitable.
Lisa Moore's writing is such a pleasure to read. She has an easy and friendly relationship with words. They get along well.
As in, , "The leaves of the lupins chussled like the turning pages of a glossy magazine."
Descriptions are precise, unexpectedly shining light on small details, illuminating the reality. The reality is mundane and unforgiving, but Moore portrays her characters with sympathetic understanding.
Slaney is a man helplessly caught in his own stupidity. He got caught trying to smuggle marijuana into Newfoundland. Very little in the book actually took place in Newfoundland, but fog and boats still got squeezed in there. He gets out of jail in 4 years, and promptly embarks on renewed plans to smuggle in an even bigger haul of weed. Slaney never really seems to get that he is his own architect of folly. He was caught once, and swore they -- the system -- wouldn't break him. "He would not betray the innermost thing. He didn’t know exactly what the innermost thing was, except it hadn’t been touched in the four years of incarceration. Come and get me. They couldn’t get him. It fluttered in and out of view, the innermost thing, consequential and delicate." He is determined not to get caught again, but simultaneously believes getting caught again is inevitable.
Lisa Moore's writing is such a pleasure to read. She has an easy and friendly relationship with words. They get along well.
May 24, 2020
I just could not get into this story. I know Lisa Moore's a fantastic writer, so I figure it's me and not the book itself. Even with ties to Newfoundland--often connection enough for me--the characters didn't catch my fancy.
I know Moore's February won Canada Reads a few years back, so I'll give that one a go.
I know Moore's February won Canada Reads a few years back, so I'll give that one a go.
February 9, 2018
Read this in advance of the CBC show and it is so good! There's a breezy drift to the narrative that makes it such a pleasurable read but the incredible writing and great characters mean I'll be getting to all her other books. So glad I finally checked it out.
November 17, 2013
It all begins with a prison break. David Slaney escapes from prison in Nova Scotia. He had been incarcerated for drug trafficking four years previously (when he was 21). He manages to escape and sets out on cross-Canada tour to his partner in crime who we come to know as Hearn. He sets out to try to recoup his losses by marijuana traffficking from Columbia back to Canada. The book is all about how David Slaney sees the world as he treks across the country and down the Pacific Ocean to Columbia. He's trying to keep one step ahead of the law the whole time, but inevitably he finds that the law is just there around the corner from where he is. David Slaney is a truly appealing character. He's a bad guy, but he's a likeable bad guy. The action is set in 1978, so no modern technology available for the cops who are on David's tail. It is certainly a unique look at the crime novel genre, and I think that's why Ms. Moore made the shortlist in the 2013 Giller Prize race. She manages to keep the story upbeat and funny, and she manages to make us like her characters, even though they are certainly not model citizens. An enjoyable book that is very different than the kinds of books that I usually read.
March 7, 2014
Now that I have read two books by Lisa Moore ("February" and "Caught"), I realize that she is a very manipulative writer! I mean that in the best way! How she contrives to make us care about both the detective and his prey is very masterful. Throughout this very exciting story, I was rooting for Slaney to get away and also for Patterson to catch him so that he could get his promotion. This is probably what made the novel so much fun to read.
This book is very different from "February" although, once again, the sea plays a very important role, almost taking on the status of a character. However, "Caught" is much more of a linear narrative with a clear plot line. Still, Lisa Moore again requires effort from the reader. I like having to work when I read a book. If it is all served up neatly on a silver platter, it is not as interesting or entertaining for me.
Some people have complained about Moore's style and her lack of quotation marks but this is part of the work that she expects from the reader. For an explanation of why she made this artistic choice, listen to this interview with her:
http://www.cityline.ca/2013/10/skype-...
This book is very different from "February" although, once again, the sea plays a very important role, almost taking on the status of a character. However, "Caught" is much more of a linear narrative with a clear plot line. Still, Lisa Moore again requires effort from the reader. I like having to work when I read a book. If it is all served up neatly on a silver platter, it is not as interesting or entertaining for me.
Some people have complained about Moore's style and her lack of quotation marks but this is part of the work that she expects from the reader. For an explanation of why she made this artistic choice, listen to this interview with her:
http://www.cityline.ca/2013/10/skype-...
November 7, 2013
Jesus. Lisa Moore sure has a way with words. Against all odds I fell in love with her protagonist David Slaney and found myself constantly yelling at him to stop being such a dunce. My only complaint was that none of the characters truly grew as people or learned a lesson in any way. Minus one star for that. Otherwise, a wonderfully told story.
March 3, 2014
The writing was wonderful: muscular and visceral. I felt the story was somehow slight compared to the writing or maybe it was that the protagonist and the voice were mismatched; I felt that I was reading the author's observations and descriptions and not those of Slaney. Sometimes the excrutiating detail of the observations was, well, excrutiating.
August 4, 2013
I love Lisa Moore but her style of writing (beautiful and poetic) didn't seem to fit this storyline. Slaney's character could have been better developed. Also, the story was slow at times when it should have been fast, and fast when it could have been more detailed. But it was a good read. I read it in a day.
July 6, 2013
Lisa Moore sure knows how to turn a phrase and bring pleasure to her readership. While I believed in the characters I did have trouble believing some of the details in the story, and that is what prevents me from rating it a 5. Still, another great book from a talented writer.
September 12, 2022
I have to be honest and say that I almost gave up reading this book at the 100 page mark.
It did improve and I picked up the rhythm of the story telling but it was touch and go.
The story is based in June 1978 and David Slaney had just escaped prison. He was in prison for drug smuggling. His partner in crime managed to not go to jail and is living under another name in Vancouver. Slaney has to get himself from an east coast prison to Vancouver. It seems as the story goes that his prison break is being financed by his former partner, Brian Hearn.
All kinds of things happen to David Slaney as he makes his way west and he meets all kinds of people. As it turns out he is being followed by the police. This is not giving anything away since it is all part of the story. David thinking he is free but is he really?
He finally meets up with his good buddy Brian who has arranged for him to take on one more job of smuggling. Sending him to Colombia to bring back marijuana. David proceeds even though there are all kinds of red flags. Nothing in this story explains why David is so stupid as to believe and trust Brian when his own senses are telling him things are not right. Which is my main complaint about the story.
It is ,after awhile, an interesting story and you can get hooked by the story if you do struggle with the first 100 pages.
I like David but I don't like his blind devotion to Brian because it makes no sense to me. There are all kinds of things that happen in this story that should make David say stop but he does not. So I guess that is his fatal flaw. I guess that is why the book is called Caught. David is caught in something and it won't let him go or he won't let go.
There is some action in this story and there seems to be a lot of movement forward but is there really?
By the end of it I wanted to throw the book across the room because I was very frustrated with David and just wanted to shake him up.
It did improve and I picked up the rhythm of the story telling but it was touch and go.
The story is based in June 1978 and David Slaney had just escaped prison. He was in prison for drug smuggling. His partner in crime managed to not go to jail and is living under another name in Vancouver. Slaney has to get himself from an east coast prison to Vancouver. It seems as the story goes that his prison break is being financed by his former partner, Brian Hearn.
All kinds of things happen to David Slaney as he makes his way west and he meets all kinds of people. As it turns out he is being followed by the police. This is not giving anything away since it is all part of the story. David thinking he is free but is he really?
He finally meets up with his good buddy Brian who has arranged for him to take on one more job of smuggling. Sending him to Colombia to bring back marijuana. David proceeds even though there are all kinds of red flags. Nothing in this story explains why David is so stupid as to believe and trust Brian when his own senses are telling him things are not right. Which is my main complaint about the story.
It is ,after awhile, an interesting story and you can get hooked by the story if you do struggle with the first 100 pages.
I like David but I don't like his blind devotion to Brian because it makes no sense to me. There are all kinds of things that happen in this story that should make David say stop but he does not. So I guess that is his fatal flaw. I guess that is why the book is called Caught. David is caught in something and it won't let him go or he won't let go.
There is some action in this story and there seems to be a lot of movement forward but is there really?
By the end of it I wanted to throw the book across the room because I was very frustrated with David and just wanted to shake him up.
July 7, 2020
nothing was as it seemed, not ever, and it was better to be on the alert. p42
Suspense there is aplenty, but the meditative quality of the writing and the psychological insights lift this adventure story outside the run of the mill plot driven narratives. The odd time frame and the minuscule attention to detail give it a dreamy, slightly hallucinogenic resonance which may or may not have something to do with all the pot.
You try to see what's coming but it shifts on you. p17
There was the desire for truth and the need to conceal it. p118
LM explores the various ways we are caught in the story of our lives. It has to do with hooks; with our sense of loyalty and dignity and to what we assign those markers of our freedom. What essentially constitutes our identity, and what do we trust? Can we rely on it?
He wanted to tell her he had seen glimpses of dignity in everyone. He didn't believe in self-denial. he thought there was nothing redemptive about guilt. He thought incarceration was the wrong thing to do to a human being. It could only warp and deform, He believed in figuring out the limits and then going farther than that. p163
LM swoops in and out of the time frames with ease. Was she smoking pot? Was I?
The desire for something was on the tip of his tongue, a word or belief, something half-articulated that he realized he could wait for, whatever it was, he didn't have to force it. p277
April 21, 2017
David Slaney and his lifelong friend Hearn were caught trying to bring more than 1 million worth of marijuana into Canada. Hearn jumped bail while David served his time, at least some of it. He escaped after four years and is on his way to hook up with Hearn again so they can undo the failure, payback money owed and start a new life.
The stage is set for Slaney to succeed, to successfully hide out, to make his connections and to deliver the cargo. After some missteps he hitchhikes to where he needs to be, never questioning his amazing luck with his rides. At one point he hides from the police in the room of a bride who’s having trouble with the zip in her dress. And even police officers aren’t going to tangle with a bride having a bad dress day.
All the planning comes together and he’s off to Colombia to pick up the cargo, along with an alcoholic skipper and his very young mistress.
A very interesting story written from the perspective of David, a young and guileless man who simply doesn’t see another way.
The stage is set for Slaney to succeed, to successfully hide out, to make his connections and to deliver the cargo. After some missteps he hitchhikes to where he needs to be, never questioning his amazing luck with his rides. At one point he hides from the police in the room of a bride who’s having trouble with the zip in her dress. And even police officers aren’t going to tangle with a bride having a bad dress day.
All the planning comes together and he’s off to Colombia to pick up the cargo, along with an alcoholic skipper and his very young mistress.
A very interesting story written from the perspective of David, a young and guileless man who simply doesn’t see another way.
May 17, 2018
This is a taut, tightly rendered story of a lost young man searching for some kind of deliverance. We never quite discover what demons he is battling, as he gets swept up in a scheme to smuggle drugs from Colombia and, after a term of imprisonment, escapes, only to embark on a plan to do it all again. The mechanics of the plot are that of a routine thriller, yet Moore confounds our expectations by getting us into the head of David Slaney, the protagonist, his confederates and, importantly, the RCMP official charged with bringing him in. Is it a tale of irredeemable destiny? Or foolish dreams? Regardless, it is a well-crafted novel that I will not soon forget.
March 1, 2018
I hate to admit this but I have no idea what I've just read!! Either my mind was elsewhere or the story just did not hold my interest! Either way, I was hugely disappointed in this novel! I wanted to read it before watching the CBC series but it really wasn't worth my time! Can't win them all, I guess!
December 19, 2018
A potentially fantastic story that got sacrificed on the altar of great writing. And there WAS some great writing, here. Unfortunately, it seemed to come at the cost of characters that were screaming for more dimension and a plot that was uneven.
December 12, 2022
The dialog has no quotation marks which was a bit weird to read.
I didn't care for this thriller and will rather continue with my Mary Higgins Clark marathon.
I didn't care for this thriller and will rather continue with my Mary Higgins Clark marathon.
October 13, 2018
Well written, although I found that sometimes, the back and forth between characters and story lines difficult to track. And you always knew it wouldn’t work the way they had planned....
July 2, 2018
I loved the writing in this novel but as others have said, the character of Slaney was hard to figure out. There wasn't enough on him. He didn't seem like such a stupid guy, yet he does stupid things. I stayed with it, though, because I did want to see what happened and the writing was compelling. Found three new words I'll remember: "Chussled," "scrudge," and "hork."
October 13, 2013
“Slaney had to believe there was a connection between people. He had to believe trust was pure too. It was worth fighting for. He trusted Hearn. He could say that out loud. It would be better that way. And he had no choice. Trust lit up on its own sometimes without cause, and there was no way to extinguish that kind of trust.”
Lisa Moore has an unusual writing style. There is an untutored quality to her writing that feels unique and unpracticed. It makes this reader slow down, and read more thoughtfully. There is no formula. The things Moore chooses to highlight in her writing somehow lead readers down the rabbit hole of associations and one is drawn into her fiction almost against our will.
In this novel, the young man Slaney escapes from his jail sentence for importing narcotics into Newfoundland and seeks out his former partner for another swing at the piñata. If writers write about what they know, the reader can’t help but wonder which side of this story Lisa Moore knows most about—the drug running or the law enforcement side. She makes it into a spine-tingling story, with a young man evading the law following him at every turn.
We have a slightly queasy feeling in the beginning, knowing our man means to try his hand at drugs again, despite having lost four years of his twenty-five to the inside. We know early on, too, that the police know his whereabouts and are allowing him to think himself free. Then there is the title, about which, even halfway through, we are still not sure. We want to suspend belief. We come to admire our man Slaney. He is so focused, dogged, and somehow pure in his devotion to an idea.
“It was the certainty that satisfied some desire in the audience. The best stories, he thought, we’ve known the end from the beginning.”
This novel has been shortlisted for Canada’s largest literary prize, the Scotiabank $50K Giller Prize, and for the 2013 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction prize. Moore had been Giller-nominated twice previously, for Open (2002) and Alligator (2005). Her 2010 novel February, about the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster on Valentine’s Day 1982, was long-listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the 2013 Canada Reads award.
This year’s Giller Prize jury features Margaret Atwood, Esi Edugyan, and Jonathan Letham, and the other shortlist novelists are Dennis Bock (Going Home Again, HarperCollins); Lynn Coady (Hellgoing: Stories, House of Anansi Press); Craig Davidson (Cataract City, Doubleday Canada); and Dan Vyleta (The Crooked Maid, HarperCollins). The winner will be announced on November 5, 2013.
April 1, 2014
'Caught' is a literary action novel filled with suspense and wonderful existential dialogue. The book definitely has philosophical leanings towards angst and fear.
David Slaney has just escaped from jail after four years of being incarcerated for smuggling two million dollars worth of pot into Canada. The year is 1978. He is determined to make it to his buddy Hearn in Vancouver to set up a second heist, hoping this time it will go right. Slaney and Hearn were turned in the first time by fishermen in Newfoundland who they never suspected of being a threat to them. This time, Slaney views everyone as a threat. Hearn didn't go to jail because he skipped bail and was never caught. He is now working on a PhD. in literature.
As David makes his way towards Hearn, a Canadian police sergeant named Patterson is after him and has infiltrated Hearn's ranks. He is one step behind Slaney all the way to Colombia where Slaney is to pick up his stash of pot and then sail to Canada. The novel gives the reader a great description of Patterson and his life. He has a teen-aged daughter who has run away and disappeared. He once had an affair with his dead father's mistress who had a son with his father. This son, Alphonse, is a Down Syndrome child who Patterson supports in a group home. Without a promotion, he can no longer afford to pay for Alphonse's care and so it is of utmost importance to him that he catch Hearn and Staley and get his promotion.
The characters come alive on the pages. Hearn and Slaney have a blind love for one another, having known each other since early childhood. Slaney worries about Hearn's set-up of this second heist but he doesn't bail. Despite his gut, he goes along with the plans. It is cat and mouse until the end.
While I really enjoyed the novel, I found the denouement too pat. I wanted it to be more drawn out and eventful. I liked the style of writing and the way that the narrative never utilized quotation marks yet the reader knows when there is dialogue. This is definitely a book for those who enjoy mystery/thrillers and like literary fiction, a rare combination to find in a book.
David Slaney has just escaped from jail after four years of being incarcerated for smuggling two million dollars worth of pot into Canada. The year is 1978. He is determined to make it to his buddy Hearn in Vancouver to set up a second heist, hoping this time it will go right. Slaney and Hearn were turned in the first time by fishermen in Newfoundland who they never suspected of being a threat to them. This time, Slaney views everyone as a threat. Hearn didn't go to jail because he skipped bail and was never caught. He is now working on a PhD. in literature.
As David makes his way towards Hearn, a Canadian police sergeant named Patterson is after him and has infiltrated Hearn's ranks. He is one step behind Slaney all the way to Colombia where Slaney is to pick up his stash of pot and then sail to Canada. The novel gives the reader a great description of Patterson and his life. He has a teen-aged daughter who has run away and disappeared. He once had an affair with his dead father's mistress who had a son with his father. This son, Alphonse, is a Down Syndrome child who Patterson supports in a group home. Without a promotion, he can no longer afford to pay for Alphonse's care and so it is of utmost importance to him that he catch Hearn and Staley and get his promotion.
The characters come alive on the pages. Hearn and Slaney have a blind love for one another, having known each other since early childhood. Slaney worries about Hearn's set-up of this second heist but he doesn't bail. Despite his gut, he goes along with the plans. It is cat and mouse until the end.
While I really enjoyed the novel, I found the denouement too pat. I wanted it to be more drawn out and eventful. I liked the style of writing and the way that the narrative never utilized quotation marks yet the reader knows when there is dialogue. This is definitely a book for those who enjoy mystery/thrillers and like literary fiction, a rare combination to find in a book.
May 5, 2015
"There are mistakes that stand in the centre of an empty field and cry out for love. (p.6)
He felt the unspooling of time." (p.10)
"A butterfly or comet or silver bullet. Something untouched, inviolate, capable of velocity, flight. He was willing to put it to the test. Take it out for a spin." (p.39)
"Her trust was a magnetic force field. She used it like a weapon; she shot a beam of trust into the dark centre of her forehead and it blinded whatever glanced that way." (p.75)
"A thousand watts of joy and badness." (p.75)
"I'm hearing about feminism, Slaney said.
Don't mind that, Hearn said.
Some of them aren't shaving their underarms, Slaney said. They aren't shaving their legs.
But they have their own rubbers, Hearn said. They're sleeping with whomsoever they please.
I'm going to have to get a handle on it, Slaney said." (p.116)
"The law was a folktale that changed every time it was told." (p.139)
"It had rained the night before and the asphalt was a black satin ribbon between sidewalks below and the buildings were reflecting cloud and window flash when the sun came out. There were splotches of lime green and dark green and blue green covering the city." (p.155)
"The yellow of the canola drained away. The bottoms of clouds were charcoal and smoke gold and the rain lashed the grass." (p.179)
"They were both essentially untrustworthy men; they were savvy to the ways of trust and saw it was predicated on a flimsy belief system. Trust was an unwillingness to think things through." (p.271)
"What he had felt as freedom had not been freedom at all. The wind and the water and he stars. None of that. He had not been free. Slaney had always been caught. He had never escaped. He'd just been on a long chain." (p.301)
He felt the unspooling of time." (p.10)
"A butterfly or comet or silver bullet. Something untouched, inviolate, capable of velocity, flight. He was willing to put it to the test. Take it out for a spin." (p.39)
"Her trust was a magnetic force field. She used it like a weapon; she shot a beam of trust into the dark centre of her forehead and it blinded whatever glanced that way." (p.75)
"A thousand watts of joy and badness." (p.75)
"I'm hearing about feminism, Slaney said.
Don't mind that, Hearn said.
Some of them aren't shaving their underarms, Slaney said. They aren't shaving their legs.
But they have their own rubbers, Hearn said. They're sleeping with whomsoever they please.
I'm going to have to get a handle on it, Slaney said." (p.116)
"The law was a folktale that changed every time it was told." (p.139)
"It had rained the night before and the asphalt was a black satin ribbon between sidewalks below and the buildings were reflecting cloud and window flash when the sun came out. There were splotches of lime green and dark green and blue green covering the city." (p.155)
"The yellow of the canola drained away. The bottoms of clouds were charcoal and smoke gold and the rain lashed the grass." (p.179)
"They were both essentially untrustworthy men; they were savvy to the ways of trust and saw it was predicated on a flimsy belief system. Trust was an unwillingness to think things through." (p.271)
"What he had felt as freedom had not been freedom at all. The wind and the water and he stars. None of that. He had not been free. Slaney had always been caught. He had never escaped. He'd just been on a long chain." (p.301)
January 5, 2014
“Caught’ by Lisa Moore. ( Read January 3rd 2014 )
Lisa Moore’s ‘Caught’ is a real page turner. The story is easy to understand: there is a smuggler (escaped from prison), a cop following him, a chase and a supporting cast of rogues and secondary characters. The book starts strong with a hair-raising prison escape in Nova Scotia. David Slaney, partially succeeds because the police want to track him to his partner in crime, who we get to know is Hearn. He crosses Canada to find Hearn and to try and recoup his losses by drug trafficking. The book is all about how David sees the world as he treks across Canada and then down the Pacific Ocean to Columbia. He is always just one step ahead of the law and in reality the law is just one step behind him. David is an appealing character; he is a bad guy but he is also very likeable. This book is set in 1978, so there is no modern technology available to the police in their chase. This is certainly a unique type of crime novel. The story is always upbeat and the characters portrayed with sympathetic understanding. Descriptions are precise, shining light on small details and illuminating the reality. I think this book would make an excellent movie.
I enjoyed this book so much – it held me completely and I could not put it down. I give it 4 stars.Thank you to Netgalley and Grove Press for allowing me to review this book.
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