The Secret Keeper

by: Paul Harris

Published by: Dutton/ Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Reviewed by Barbara L. Fielder

Freetown, Sierra Leone, 2004. The author reaches out and grabs you from the first paragraph when you discover that Danny, a reporter for London’s “The Statesman,” is experiencing a painful and grisly torture. The torturer is not identified; and yes you may be shocked when the author reveals just who is behind the torture as this story unfolds.

Flash back three months earlier when out of the blue, Danny receives a handwritten note from his former lover, Maria, who is in the South African country of Sierra Leone. The note is filled with a short but desperate plea for Danny to come to her aid. With that being said, the author takes you on a circuitous journey in which Danny travels to and from London to Sierra Leon to follow Maria’s passion for saving the children who are war victims and/or recruited to serve in the brutal war waged by the Revolutionary United Front, the RUF.
Danny’s captivated by the story of Sierra Leone, the brutality, the slums, the beauty that can be found in the most uncommon places and of course, Maria.
You discover that what originally brought Danny to this corner of the world was to avoid covering the ordinary and mundane domestic London news. Through a work colleague, he was surprised to find himself pegged to cover a story that was unfolding in this South African country. What he then discovers is a story of unfolding tragedy, and civil war.

You know that in Danny’s quest to help Maria, something will go tragically and terribly wrong. It is this knowledge that keeps you reading page after page to discover what events lead Danny to the grisly and frightening experience portrayed in the first paragraph on the first page of this compelling novel.

Who is involved in Danny’s torture? Why is Danny tortured? What secret does Danny know that his torturer demands from him?

NOTE: Paul Harris is currently the US Correspondent of the British weekly newspaper “The Observer,” the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper. The Secret Keeper was inspired by his reporting on events in 2000 in Sierra Leone as that country’s long civil war came to an end.

Armchair Interviews says: A poignant and gripping read.

Author’s Web site: http://www.TheSecretKeeper.us