When I read the last page of Moonlit Tours, I closed the book and thought, “Alistair has written a good narrative. But it wasn’t a GREAT narrative”. So what the H*LL made me miss my subway stop 3 days in a row? 3 days in a row I looked up from the book, like a panicked idiot, and realized, “shoot, there goes my stop!”.

The best I way can describe this novel is that while it IS a novel, it is not REALLY a novel. It’s the written equivalent of watching Bob Dylan (or any great songwriter) perform. The guitar patterns (in this case- the story/narrative) are simple. But the lyrics (in this case the characters) are not. And while it might be easy to pay attention to the music (the story), if you don’t pay attention to the lyrics (the characters), you will not extract the impressive depth of this novel. I hope you’re still with me here…

Well researched empirical data and profiles are fed to the us from a spoon of creative metaphors and detailed description that allow us to take a privileged look into who his characters are and what makes them `tick’. And these are complicated (sometimes frightening, sometimes heroic) people. But in the context of the narrative (our background music) Alistair deconstructs them- as their stories start to weave- in a fashion that the reader, while they might not empathize with all of them, can get as close to them as they will ever get. And in typical Alistair fashion, I found myself relating closely (like a verse of a well written song can make you raise your eyebrows) to a couple of his characters.

I don’t wish to give away too much, but THAT is the real intelligence behind his story. YOU are taken on your own Moonlit Tour, but you don’t really understand that until you close the book and ask yourself, `why the H*LL have I missed my subway stop 3 days in a row?’.