Homegrown terror

Paul Grech's highly readable work brought back vivid memories of two meetings I had with Yasser Arafat way back in the early 1980s, during the course of my journalistic studies. The much discussed, overbearing figure of the late Palestinian leader, however, is perhaps the only character in Dead End that is not press-ganged and packaged into the conglomeration of stereotypes that feature in it.

Mr Grech has, nonetheless, produced a pacy, good thriller that has a special appeal to Maltese readers. It tells of a daring rescue attempt in Malta, where a surviving airplane hijacker is to undergo trial in the full flash and blaze of the international media, with Fort St Angelo in the Grand Harbour acting as the awe-inspiring venue.

If you ignore the stereotypes running out at you from every page, from the Arab hijackers and their paymasters to the Maltese "left-wing" twin stonemasons and a benevolent Kalkara prostitute, the book provides ample fun and mental forage. I cannot see for a single moment, however, how an Islamic fundamentalist could possibly, and remotely, be inspired by the atheist revolution-monger Che Guevara. The two simply do not tally, but the way Mr Grech goes about his business of creating a story and linking his fast-moving scenes adequately makes up for such fastidious observations.

Mr Grech's dialogue is straight-forward, often rudimentary, and yet effectively so. Paradoxically, his stereotype figures quite often come up with some completely unexpected utterances, in the process of which they throw on the story the light and nuances so necessary in an ever-changing scenario.

Though Dead End is a declared work of fiction, Maltese readers will still find it fascinating as they all so naturally unwrap some of the characters and situations from real persons and real events. Yet even here, Mr Grech exploits to the full his poetic licence and as soon as one is just about to shout "eureka", his story takes a quick new twist and the odious comparisons go easily forgotten.

Typographical errors, so unnecessary in this computer age, dent somewhat the book's presentation quality, but that is less disturbing than the writer's tendency, happily not too frequent, to steal in some personal, albeit superfluous, touches by way of threading an otherwise compelling story. To give two examples: "Little did she know" and "It never crossed her mind what he was planning for her", surplus omniscient additions that in no way help either towards keeping the story going or maintaining the reader's interest. Mr Grech does not forfeit his undoubted story-telling abilities, but in so doing, he needlessly projects some isolated moments of naïvety.

Dead End has all the ingredients required to make a good thriller. The medical professional in the author hardly ever interferes with the artist inside. There are tell-tale glimpses, but they are few enough to protect Mr Grech's work from the boring orthodoxy of individuals gyrating in the wondrous space that separates science from art. Mr Grech's pleasing compromise is to the benefit of his readers.

• Mr Flores is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written books of fiction and non-fiction as well as poetry in both Maltese and English. He was one of the co-founders of the Moviment Qawmien Letterarju.

• A review copy of this title was supplied by Allied Publications.