I give this "literary thriller" 2.5 stars out of 5. I was loving Finn's prose for about the first 100 pages, then got bored with it. About the first 200 pages (out of 300) focused on Pilgrim Jones, whose international lawyer leaves her because he gets some woman pregnant, and Pilgrim kills three kids with her car in Switzerland when swerving to avoid hitting a dog. Pilgrim then flees to Africa. The rest of the chapters are from points of views (POV's) of different characters. I thought at least 50 pages of Pilgrim's POV could have been edited out, maybe even 100 pages. Bright spots of the novel include the well-fleshed-out character of Gloria, who runs an AIDS orphanage; and a line about mercenary Martin Martins: violence is tied up in his identity — that truism will stay with me for a long time.
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