Book review: Try the Morgue by Eva Maria Staal

Goodreads: “Ten years ago, “Eva Maria Staal” kept a gun in her purse. It was a present from her boss, Jimmy Liu, the international arms dealer extraordinaire with a taste for high-class male escorts. Together, Jimmy and his devoted assistant traveled the world’s most dangerous hotspots, closing deals with ruthless warlords and corrupt generals, and trading Stinger missiles in Karachi, AK-47s in Chechnya, and hollow-point bullets in Islamabad. But burdened by her conscience, Eva Maria finally got out, married an optometrist, and had a baby. Now, assailed with memories of her secret life, she must reconcile her suburban present with a repressed but ineradicable past, one that blasts a hole so deep she doesn’t know how to love her own daughter. Writing with a knowing intelligence only an insider could provide, this pseudonymous author has created a debut with remarkable intensity that examines the razor-thin line separating those who are drowned from those who are saved.”
 
This was a gripping, intense book that I am not sure how to classify. It’s probably fict-ish, a mostly-memoir with creative license. The shocking, blase nature of the global underground arms trade is laid bare, and it’s horrifying and mesmerizing.

I can’t really critique the story (not that I would, because I enjoyed it) since it seems so based in truth and experience. I do wish, though, that I had a little more insight into the author/narrator’s motives. The novel starts in media res and outside of what seems like a loyalty (or just obligation?) to her boss, I never got a great idea of how Staal found herself in the arms trade or what was really keeping her there. Staal must have expected a curiosity, not only about the trade, but also about the people in it, so the dispassionate way she wrote can be a bit unsatisfying — we want to know what drives someone like her to such amoral, destructive work.

The only other criticism I have is regarding the linearity — I have no preference for a linear timeline at all, but if one is going to jump about, it should be pretty clear where in the narrative we are at any given point. In this book, there were definitely chapter openings where I wasn’t certain when the conversation was taking place or who she was referencing. When this happened it does eventually become clear, but I was caught flipping pages a bit to try to catch on. Overall, this was a very quick and fascinating read on a topic I know very little about. I’d love to know more about the author’s story and in a way wish this book were longer, but it seems she shared about as much as she was willing to so I have to accept what I got.