Kill Switch

Daniel's grandfather, Da, retired from his government job, begins hinting at former involvement in political intrigue, coups, and assassinations. When old "friends" begin showing up, worried that Da might reveal past deeds, Daniel and Da hit the road. The premise is great, developed with brilliant prose and featuring characters who are sympathetically and vividly evoked.

Daniel loves his grandfather and has always been closer to him than to his own father. Da retired early from his government job, but his brain "started retiring before he did," and he begins saying crazy things that hint at his involvement in political intrigue, coups, and assassinations. Did he really scale a building in Tel Aviv and blind a scientist using a paper clip? Or set a man's face on fire in Cyprus? Did he impersonate a jockey and win a race on a drugged horse in Bolivia? When old "friends" of Da begin showing up, apparently worried that Da has become a loose cannon and might reveal past deeds, Daniel and Da hit the road. It's a great premise, developed with brilliant prose, but once the characters find a place in the middle of nowhere to hide out, the story stalls a bit and little new is revealed about Da, his past, and those old friends. Still, the characters are sympathetically and vividly evoked, and the brief novel is a model of good writing. When Da tells Daniel, "Keep it lean, Young Man….Use exactly the words you need, and no more than that," he might have been describing Lynch's spare prose. Delineating the complicated relationship of grandfather, son, and grandson, for example, takes but one sentence: "I never have any trouble getting along with either of them, but boy, whenever we are all together we are one gimpy vehicle, one wheel short or one too many." dean schneider