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This may be the best Arthur Beauchamp novel yet
Book Review
By Derryll White
Deverell, William (2020). Stung.
“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” – Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s quote says it all! William Deverall serves up a delightful and poignant call to arms to all readers. Rivie Levitsky lets it all hang out with Operation Beekeeper, a planned assault by the ragtag Earth Survival Rebellion group. She cleanly drives home the spike cast by Rachel Carson so long ago with ‘Silent Spring.’
Deny what you will, turn your gaze away if you must, but we are turning the earth into a cesspool that will not sustain us.
The is William Deverell‘s ninth Arthur Beauchamp novel, featuring the more reclusive, withdrawn old lawyer quietly enjoying his time on his rural farm at Blunder Bay, situated on one of the West Coast islands. He is urged by his wife, MP and leader of the Green Party, to take on the defence of the seven political activists caught attacking an Ontario plant of an international pesticide manufacturer. Arthur has to leave the peace of the islands for that nasty centre of the universe, Toronto.
Deverell presents the sobering ecological catastrophe we are all party to in an informative and gripping way. He exposes the corporate greed and uncaring approach of the whole pesticide/chemical industry. His text is political but not preachy, vastly entertaining and yet leaving the reader with some serious questions. The characters are memorable, the plot well researched and the writing is truly wonderful. This may be the best Arthur Beauchamp novel yet. It really is worth reading.
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Excerpts from the text:
NEW AMERICA – They found their way to Canada through the American Refugee Centre, seeking a bolthole from the depredations of their self-obsessed president and his supporting cast of wealthy misanthropes, crooks, and global warmers.
SOCIAL MEDIA – She’s only an hour away by air but Parliament is in session and her evenings are jammed with committee meetings. So they’ve made do with a program his new iPhone called FaceTime which somehow, miraculously, he figured out – after confusing it with Facebook, which he is not on, and never will be, along with Twitter and whatever else the profiteers of vanity come up with.
CHANGING WORLD – After enduring the obstacle course that flying has become – line-ups, multiple security checks – Arthur has arrived in the pleasant little city of Joplin in the heartland of the USA.
LAW – I’m seeing criminal law in a new light. There’s flexibility to it. I find it profoundly creative of Arthur and Nancy to have made adjustments on the fly to the trial defence of necessity. They’ve narrowed its focus to real people, like the unlikely duo of Barney Wilson and Charlie Dover.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org
