Saddam's Bank Revisited

When David Ignatius’s thriller, The Bank of Fear, became available as an e-book on Amazon a few weeks ago (May 28), I immediately downloaded it to my over-stuffed kindle. I’ve enjoyed Ignatius’s novels (as well as his political commentary in the Washington Post and on NPR) in the past, and I looked forward to reading what I thought was his new book. Shortly thereafter I devoured this page-turner in a day. What I carelessly ignored (so easy to do with an e-book) was that it was a “reissue” by W.W. Norton of a novel originally published in 1994 by William Morrow.

As a new book, it was a puzzler. The text provided no indication of when the novel’s action was meant to occur, only suggesting that it was the present. Yet, at the beginning, there was an unnamed “Ruler” in power in Iraq, a Saddam Hussein-like dictatorial despot who, in the course of the book, was assassinated, probably by a family member. Reading The Bank of Fear now, so soon after W’s misbegotten Iraqi War adventure, I could only innocently imagine that Ignatius intended his story as some sort of “alternate history.” I spent a few idle minutes thinking about how “reality,” in the form of actual historical figures, functions in a fictional world. When does it enhance credibility? How much leeway does an author have before losing a reader’s willing suspension of disbelief?

But, of course, such speculation was totally irrelevant. Given the novel’s actual date, I now wonder whether Ignatius in 1994 meant his fictional assassination of the Iraqi “Ruler” as a  wishful prediction of a still-unknown future. The novel’s vivid depiction of torture scenes in Baghdad, however, would seem to have a different purpose. Though the victim is a fictional character-- the attractive computer expert Lina Alwan-- those grim pages read like documentary evidence of Saddam’s cruel regime. On the other hand, Alwan’s Swiss bank escapade, in which she cleverly moves millions of The Ruler’s ill-gotten loot from its hiding place in Geneva to her own private account, is sheer fictional entertainment. And delightful.

Also delightful, singular and surprisingly early-- i.e., even before the brilliant Lisbeth Salander made an appearance-- is that the computer whiz and her expert pal in The Bank of Fear are both female. Are there others in contemporary fiction that I’ve missed? Readers-- please let me know...