Book Review: The Expats (Chris Pavone)

The Expats - or rather, expatriates, referring to people who live in a country other than the one they were raised in - in this case refers to a family that moves to Luxembourg on a business venture, with the thrilling prospect of seeing Europe and experiencing its culture.  However, beneath the family facade, buried secrets emerge.  As it turns out, the wife was once employed in the CIA as a spy and assassin, though her family is oblivious to her previous transgressions.  Things gradually get more and more intense when she suspects that her husband may be doing shady business in Europe.  What follows is a huge amount of mystery and intrigue, as secrets and lies are slowly and methodically revealed.

There isn't a whole lot of action to this novel, but it is definitely a fun read, given the constant cliffhangers, the somewhat cheeky narration, engaging dialogue, and the methodical unraveling of the mystery overall.  The book is pretty fast and easy to read.  It finds a good balance between being wordy and being trim.  Parts of it are quite witty, especially as the book often harps on the differences between living in the US and living in Europe.  Having lived in Europe for a while, I found much of the book to be really spot-on with its descriptions and details; it's clear to me that Mr. Pavone wrote this novel from the actual experience of living overseas.

The story is decently-told and well-built.  It builds a tremendous amount of suspense with the way it reveals each new suspicious thing, and through the main character's perspective, we are made to relate to her paranoia and doubts.  Through this, a subtle inner conflict runs through the entire story and makes it really engaging.  The book presents a decent group of characters, all pretty distinctive and realistic.  If there's anything to complain about it's that the book is jumbled up a bit, using flashbacks and flash-forwards frequently, and it can appear convoluted at times.  I also felt the ultimate climax was surprisingly anticlimactic; it's an okay ending, but I was left wanting more to it.

The writing is generally good.  This writer has an interesting tendency to list descriptions one after another, as a barrage of sensation and thoughts, and it is pretty effective that way.  The style is unique and fun, and I think it does a good job of matching up with the main character's thought patterns.

Overall, I would say this book is good, not great, but definitely a fun and easy read.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Very Good | Story:  Pretty Good | Book:  Good)