Here
is another author you will wonder why you missed until now. Dennis
Batchelder's Soul Intent: a Soul Identity Novel, the sequel to his
debut novel, Soul Identity, once again illustrates his mastery of
concise and riveting story-telling coupled with the interweaving of
familiar themes as personal ambition, deception, revenge, retribution,
self-preservation and greed, all mesmerizing his readers from the very
first chapter. In addition, with this second novel, Batchelder has
certainly grown as an author. As in the case of his debut novel, Batchelder continues to focus on
a company called Soul Identity that can figure out how to identify and
track your soul. Moreover, they know how to read it, and after you die,
they can find it again when it appears in another body. The company
also acts as a depositary where clients can deposit their possessions,
ideas, life experiences and other valuables and give it all back to you
after they find you in your future life.
As our narrative unfolds, Archibald Morgan, Soul Identity's
octogenarian executive overseer once again contacts Scott Waverly and
his tiny company requesting their immediate professional security
services. Morgan explains to Waverly that during the Nuremberg trials
in 1946, he had helped Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, just
before he stood trial for his hideous war crimes, establish his soul
line collection. Goering was determined to grasp at immortality by
handing over his memoirs and his fortune to Soul Identity's depositary
in the hope that one day his reincarnated soul would return in a fresh
body and take up the Nazi cause. What was noteworthy about his material
possessions were gold bars. However, these were not regular gold bars,
but gold that was stolen from millions of Jewish and Gypsy bodies as
well as others. Now, Sixty-four years later, Morgan discovers that the
items he helped Goering deposit are missing. Waverly's task is to track
down the culprit or culprits who broke into the company's security
system in order to commit their crime.
A carry over from Batchelder's first novel is the beautiful gypsy
woman Madame Flora and, as we will soon discover, she will play a
pivotal role in the development of this second novel. Flora is the
owner of a palm reading enterprise on Kent Island, Maryland where
Waverly's company is located. In addition, she recruits members,
earning her commissions when they matched existing soul lines. We learn
that in 1946 Flora, who was seventeen at the time, was present at the
time that Goering deposited his gold and documents. This was the result
of a letter she had received from Soul Identity's headquarters
requesting that she travel to Nuremberg from Yugoslavia in order to
perform the reading as well as assisting in the enrollment and
subsequent depositary transfers of an individual, who at the time was
not named. If she agreed, the company would aid her and two of her
family members to immigrate to the United States. In order to save her
grandmother or baba, as she called her and herself, Flora traveled to
Nuremberg where she met up with Morgan.
When Flora finds out whom she must help, she becomes extremely
agitated , recalling the hideous crimes committed by this monumental
brute including the murder of her father at Dachau. Nonetheless, in
order to save her grandmother and herself and escape to the United
States, Flora acquiesces. Morgan is relentless in his defense of the
company's admittance of Goering as a client, for, as he states, it
never discriminated against its members no matter how detestable he or
she may be. However, as we later realize, Morgan was also more
concerned about furthering his own personal ambitions than considering
the moral implications of his actions.
Not only is this novel powerful and compulsively entertaining, but
also thought provoking, as it involves the reader totally while at the
same time presenting it in an economic style that doesn't overwhelm.
Using flashbacks, the story moves briskly, effectively employing
down-to-earth dialogue. As you listen to the exchanges between his
characters, you feel you are actually eavesdropping on real
conversations.
To boot, Batchelder's fiction will have you challenging the conduct of
his principal characters, Morgan and Flora, as they tangle their lives
with those of historical events and rationalize their actions. And
although his characters appear strong and spirited, they are still
learning, still making mistakes.
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