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Article: Iron and velvet snares: Mary Morris' fine novel of entrapment
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- June 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1997 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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Entrapment is the stuff of nightmare and, as novelist Mary Morris
shows in House Arrest (Picador, $12), it can have subtle layers of
constriction.
Maggie Conover, the narrator, has returned to an unnamed
Caribbean island to update a travel guide, but is detained on her
arrival for unstated reasons. She senses correctly that her problem
is related to her visit two years before, when she befriended Isabel,
the illegitimate daughter of the island's ruler, from whom the
daughter is estranged.
But for days no one will tell her what the problem is. She is
set up in the island's only luxury hotel, where each day she is met
by an army officer who escorts her to various places for questioning
by ...