"The Amateur" | Reviewed by Chris Stuckenschneider

With 26 books to his name, Chris Bohjalian continues to captivate, his fans eagerly awaiting his next release. Bohjalian knows how to spin a tale, and he scores a perfect round with “The Amateur,” a read-it-in-one-day novel that centers on a deadly incident at a country club in the 1970s. The freak accident kicks off the pageturner, the prologue introducing a young caddy waiting to tote players’ bags round 18-holes when a ball cracks open his skull. Within minutes Kenny Foster is dead.

His killer is the book’s narrator, the club’s best hope for notoriety, Mira Winston, an 18-year-old LPGA wanna-be who basically lives at the golf course to improve her game. Mira is hitting balls into the net that fateful day, trying to perfect her drives, when by some fluke the ball hits a much-loved teenager who’s a year behind Mira in high school.

Though Mira is as much a victim as young Kenny, Bohjalian has created a complicated character in this young woman that at times makes her less than sympathetic. This girl has issues—parents who drink too much and a father who prefers his son to Mira. Though at times her temper is justified, Mira is reactive and has a penchant for older married men. But is that her fault or is 47-year-old Theo Catton to blame, a country club member who needed a fourth for his group. At the end of the round, he asked Mira for her phone number.

Mira tells her story as an adult, looking back in time, detailing the continued horror she felt in killing Kenny and her belief that it was payback from God for her affair with Theo. Public opinion of Mira after the accident grows more complicated because of her behavior and actions. Mira is blamed and suffers mightily, never picking up a golf club again and changing her career path as she deals with the legal ramifications that affect her emotionally and result in a tense trial at the end of the novel.

“The Amateur” is certain to be popular, a book with an array of discussable topics, and an engaging palette of characters, so human, so vulnerable. This latest offering by Bohjalian is one of my favorites. Can’t wait to hear about what others think. Page On!

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