Rescued at the death

Rescue. Anita Shreve. Little Brown £13.99. eBook €(Kindle) £8.74

THE name Anita Shreve has become almost, a brand. Publishers use it to describe a genre. If you see ‘like Anita Shreve’ on a book cover, it means that the author writes well, and on the more literary end of the women’s fiction spectrum. The book is also likely to analyse the minutiae of relationships.

Yet when you pick up a book by Anita Shreve, you’re never sure what to expect. She’s written novels set in the past; she’s veered into Jodi Picoult territory with issue-driven stories. Some of her books are compulsive page turners; other are slow and meditative. So just because you adored the last book she wrote, is no guarantee that you will like the next.

Her latest, and 16th novel, stars Peter Webster, a young American paramedic. Called out to a crash caused by a young woman who was way over the alcohol limit, Webster can’t resist staying in touch with her, even though that means breaking all the ethical rules.

A good-hearted guy who ignores warning signs, Webster is soon embroiled with Sheila. Convinced he loves her, he marries her when she announces her pregnancy. Soon though, his happiness takes a nosedive.

We first meet Webster when his daughter, Rowan is 17. He’s been a single parent since his wife’s disappearance 15 years before, and until now, it’s been a harmonious alliance. But Rowan is changing, and Webster is worried. His daughter’s become secretive, and he fears she may be picking up traits from her absent mother.

Shreve goes back in time, retelling the story of Webster’s meeting and marriage with Sheila. It’s a slow, almost painstaking read at the start. I enjoyed learning about the work life of a paramedic. It was interesting sharing Webster’s grief at the death of children, and bravery at the more grisly scenes, but it’s a while before anything much happens.

Having recounted the past, Shreve picks up the threads in the present. Rowan continues to worry her father. Her grades are slipping, and then, one night, finds her drunk. His worst fears realised, he wonders who can help. He decides to contact Sheila again. But what will happen when the pain of the past is revisited?

The pace picks up towards the end. There’s a crisis, and the novel becomes a compulsive page turner. The reader will race through the last 80 or so pages, desperate to know what happens. But would the fraught situation have resulted in such an easy, heart-warming resolution, or has Shreve taken the easy option in ironing out possible problems so deftly?

This is far from my favourite of Anita Shreve’s offerings. But it’s an easy read with a likeable hero, and it contains quite a bit of food for thought.