The pseudonymous Eva Maria Staal's first novel, Try the Morgue, deftly marries an edgy thriller to a sensitive literary story. It's narrated by Maria, a woman caught between her desire for a stable family and the emotional rush she gets from lucrative, illegal gun deals. Maria goes to work for Jimmy Liu, who teaches her all about clandestine weapon shipments, backroom brokering, bickering among dealers and slipping across borders under fake papers. Jimmy's personal attention attracts her as much a rich deal does. "He sees things in me that I don't see," she explains, "that no one sees."
Maria's narrative moves fluidly between her past and her present. Today she is moving to a suburb of Amsterdam with her architect husband, Martin, and their daughter, Nella. Her domestic life is one of playdates and conversations over coffee with Nella's schoolmate's mother. Yesterday, though, she was dealing carbines and Chinese-made Stingers--"not exactly something to be handing out in Karachi," she admits. "But it's a living."
When Jimmy disappears in a deal gone wrong and, after she's tried all the hospitals, the local police tell her to "try the morgue," Maria is haunted by the words of his sword-making grandfather: "Swords don't take sides." Staal doesn't take sides either, but instead lets Maria tell her own story, where the sides she must choose between are not political, but personal... and that choice is the most difficult. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.