Going East

by Matthew d'Ancona

"From Publishers Weekly:
D'Ancona's smart, riveting thriller opens with a bang when political consultant Mia Taylor, who slipped away from a family celebration to meet her boss and lover, returns to find her whole charming, upper-crust family killed in a bomb blast. An Irish terror group claims responsibility, and Mia, stunned by her loss, puts her money in trust, quits her job, abandons her lover (wily politician Miles Anderton) and takes a job at an alternative health center in London's down-and-out East End. Mia adapts to her surroundings with surprising ease, but she also begins making inquiries into the bombing. The first lead dead-ends with a dead mobster, but after the center is bombed as well, Taylor steps up her search and hits the mother lode when she learns the full implications of her brother Ben's side business as a high-tech money launderer. A reunion with Anderton reveals his duplicity and leads to one of his political rivals, and D'Ancona follows up with a gratifying ending in which Mia gets her revenge on a surprise villain. Strong plotting is the key to the book, but its heart and soul is grieving, fierce Mia and the fascinating new world in which she must forge her path."

Genres: Fiction

First published April 26, 2004

Reviews

[Pam Jenoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may not have heard of this one, but it is an intriguing thriller about Mia, whose happy life and high flying career are destroyed when a bomb rips through her family home. She flees to gritty East London and starts over, all the while trying to figure out who ripped apart her life and why. Original and suspenseful.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 4 out of 5]

After trudging out of the Mile End tube station on a wintery August day I had my first glimpse of London. I had no illusions going in to my two-year post-doc that I was going to be in tourist "Cool Brittania" London, but the East End of London did take a while to appreciate. d'Ancona obviously does relish all that the East End has, but he does know that its history ("The Blind Beggar" for instance) has a lot of dark alleys.

"Going East" is not an easy book to describe at all. Some cities are somewhat straightforward to capture, Paris, for instance, or Venice. London in its conglomerated patchwork of subsumed villages presents very different faces as you travel through it. I think that is what happened to this book, it is like the novel version of London - here is a lost-woman-finding-herself story, there is a fumbling love story, here is an immigrant struggle story, a revenge tale and out of the blue is a whodunnit!

All in all, the writing was good enough to keep my attention as the various foci of the book sharpened and dulled, I didn't really have the "hey, wait a minute, what happened to ...." feeling and d'Ancona very neatly tied up most of the loose ends in a very satisfactory manner.

However, the surveillance state of London was just starting when I was there 20 years ago (i.e. remote cameras everywhere) - I find it very hard to believe the things Mia did could have gone undetected for very long.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very intriguing read and quite different to most thrillers and fiction books, I quite liked the style of the book and the characters were strong and believable. It caught me off guard a couple of times in a good way. The end had me hooked wanting to find out how the story would play out and end, as I really wasn't sure until the very end. You really felt the main character Mia who was really suffering in her life and had decided to completely change her life and hide away. Id say the start was a 3 the early to middle bit a 2 at times as it went on a bit but the middle to end was a 5 so a 4 felt fair overall

[BookBec · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started as a three-star book due to clunky introductions of characters; I had to keep rereading to try to figure out who was who.

Then it became a four-star book as Mia underwent her transformations and grew into her new life, although I never understood her leap across the 10-year age difference and worlds-of-life-perspective difference in her romance.

But it returned to three stars at the end, with the bad guy's identity and her actions for "resolution."

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another brilliant novel! Set in London so I guess it may be even better if you know the streets of the East End, it is both a family saga.....Mia's own family and her new family ( the characters in the Echinacea centre...beautifully drawn) and a thriller.
Could barely put it down and read it in the afternoons which is very unusual for me!!

[Ruth Soz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been told different parts of London are like night and day, and this book highlighted that for me. I wasn't sure how I would like this. The beginning starts with an act of terrorism, and I haven't been impressed with novels written in wake of September 11th. But I liked the way the author interspersed a personal story with underlying larger issues. It also suprised me a few times and kept me on my toes, which I appreciate.

[Linden · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just Finished (12) Going East by Matthew d'Ancona.

Meh.

[Susan Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Utter rubbish - no story, too many characters. Nothing happening. Consigned to recycle bin