Weekly Reader: The Network by Margaret Lomas; A Strange But Effective Mix of Chick Lit and Espionage Thriller

 

Weekly Reader: The Network by Margaret Lomas; A Strange But Effective Mix of Chick Lit and Espionage Thriller

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: The best way to describe Margaret Lomas's novel, The Network is Bridget Jones Vs. ISIS. To paraphrase the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercials: "Hey you got Espionage in my Chick Lit.* "Well you got Chick Lit in my Espionage."

The book starts out as a chick lit about a woman coming off a dead end job and bad relationship to embrace a new exciting life in another country as an on air reporter. She has the supportive best friend and the dalliances with Mr. Right who turns out to be Mr. Wrong. But then the book goes from Helen Fielding to Tom Clancy in less than sixty pages. The woman then finds herself in the middle of international intrigue and becomes the target of a terrorist organization.

There are many ways that mixing light hearted comedy with espionage wouldn't work, but somehow in this case it does. Among the reasons that it works is because Lomas creates an effective lead who is well meaning, but awkward and is caught in a genuinely terrifying situation.

Samantha "Sam" Cannon is an Australian woman who longs to be a serious journalist. Unfortunately, she is stuck reporting on human interest stories for Australian Television, such as the farmer with the biggest potato or the newest baby animal at the zoo. Her one success story was exposing an MP who was caught using funds to pay for his affair with an exotic dancer, but that brief flame flickered as quickly as her relationship with her boyfriend, Ryan. Speaking of Ryan, Sam catches him in bed with another woman when he's supposed to be with his mother. Her going nowhere job and break up are enough to make her want to start over.

Her loyal and worldly friend, Bella talks Sam into applying for an on-site reporter position in Jakarta, Indonesia. She does and gets the job. She instantly clicks in her new surroundings, enjoys Jakartan life, befriends her welcoming colleagues, and obtains a new love interest in Jase, a fellow Australian transplanted to Indonesia. However, Sam doesn't like Jase's friend, Arwan. He is intrusive, pushy, chauvinistic, and horns in on her and Jade's dates. Not only that but Jase constantly defers to Arwan.

Aside from the difficulties between her, Jase, and Arwan, Sam thrives at her job. Even before she moved to Jakarta, she exhibited a keen sense of observation and journalistic sense. With the Exotic Dancer story, she follows a lead by contacting another dancer with whom sh had a previous acquaintanship when Sam worked as a barista. In Jakarta, she lands a plum interview with a female politician and becomes interesting in covering the lives of young Indonesians whether they will follow old traditions or make new ones.

Another reason that The Network worls is that the espionage plot is genuinely suspenseful with the tense situations and the minds of the terrorists who we don't empathize with but understand why they would choose such a violent path. We also become interested in Sam's involvement with them because she acts like normal people would in such a situation. She witnesses a shakedown and covers it for a story. She happens to be in a club when a bomb goes off. Her despair is clearly felt as she learns that one of her friends had died. 

She also has some awkward moments such as trusting the wrong people, revealing too much, or being caught alone with the enemy. She is not a Super Woman, she is Every Woman. 

We also get some interesting insights into the terrorist organization and how they operate. While some writing veers towards uncomfortable stereotyping, their motives are made clear. One of the characters is given a backstory that does not absolve him of his destructive acts but puts them in a context that makes sense to his character.

The title, The Network is a double meaning. It refers to the television news network in which Sam works and the terrorist network that commits mass murder. Cleverly, Lomas builds a network between two genres they usually don't cross but this time they do and do it well.