This is not a children’s book but is clean, family oriented and intriguing.  Dr Russell suddenly decides to solve his family troubles by taking indefinite, unplanned leave from his job, and takes his wife and two kids on the holiday of a lifetime.

What a holiday!  Just imagine the most enjoyable tour of the West Coast of North America, staying in the best hotels, doing all the outdoor sports and sight-seeing trips (they missed out Mount Rainier but maybe it’s changed since I went there).  Every now and then danger strikes but Dad handles it all.  What is he?  Ex Special Forces or something?  What is the secret? When he asks what they should do next, the son says “Grand Canyon”.  So they drop everthing and go off on the spur of the moment via Las Vegas… and of course it doesn’t stop there.  By now I’m thinking, has he embezzled his workplace?  Is it all a fraud?  Stolen some credit cards?

Despite the travelogue becoming almost relentless with its impeccably researched hotels, cafes and rest stops, not to mention the tourist attractions (I’ve been on a lot of those trips – over a 25 year period!) the slick writing compels you to continue.  A most enjoyable read with a persistent twitch in the telling to remind you that somewhere, sometime, reality will bite.

And it does, in a beautifully constructed solution.

Claude Bouchard – Asylum

Book Review: Asylum by Claude Bouchard
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