The Informationist – Taylor Stevens

The Informationist
Taylor Stevens
Crown Publishers
2011, 307p
Read from my local library

Vanessa ‘Michael’ Munroe collects information. Born in central Africa to Missionary parents, Vanessa was left to her own devices as a small child and ran with the local children. She displayed a dazzling aptitude for languages, picking up on many of the local dialects spoken around her. When she was fourteen, her talent for language landed her a ‘job’ of sorts for a notorious and skilled drug/gun runner. She was employed to ‘listen in’ and gather information but it wasn’t long before she was learning more than that.

Her life became a miserable nightmare and her action to finish a never-ending threat to her safety had her leaving the continent of her birth and fleeing. Whilst completing a paper on an African nation for college, her talents at unearthing information were discovered and she was employed by various individuals and organisations to gather what cannot be found in textbooks. A chameleon who is comfortable playing either sex, who now speaks 22 languages and possesses the ability to assess and slip into whatever role is necessary to get the information required, Munroe has built an impressive reputation.

Originally intending to have a break, she is hired by a Texas oil billionaire to try and track down his adopted daughter Emily, who vanished four years ago in the middle of Africa. Something intrigues Munroe into taking the case, for a massive fee, with the one downside of having one of the Texan’s ‘men’ tagging along with her for the ride. Miles Bradford is ex-armed services and very sharp – and more than happy to let Munroe take the lead. Given how well she knows Africa and how she can get the papers and documents they need to slip in and out of some of the most dangerous countries, Miles would be mad not to.

In Africa, Munroe and Bradford stumble upon some strange happenings and realise that Emily’s disappearance is no where near as straightforward as an American girl vanishing in a dangerous and unknown country. After an attack on Munroe the job becomes deeply personal for her and she vows to continue, even after they are presented with evidence of what apparently happened to Emily. Her journey into Africa will bring her back into contact with a familiar face who she will need if she is to survive.

When I finished The Informationist, I thought it was about an 8/10 read but I’ve had time to ponder it since then and I’m not sure that’s how I actually feel about it. At first read it’s full of action – Munroe is skilled in languages, martial arts/hand-to-hand combat, shooting and blending in. She’s an expert at finding out what people want to know and disappearing without a trace when it’s all over. I love books that are set in Africa or partially take place there and that definitely helped boost my enjoyment of this book. Munroe and Bradford visit places like Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon (which also happens to be Munroe’s place of birth), both places that are new to me in fiction.

There’s no denying there’s going to be some comparisons to Lisabeth Salander – comparisons are inevitable in the world of fiction. Like Salander, Munroe deals in information, although she travels to find it whereas Salander acquired most of hers through hacking and computer work. They’re both thin, almost androgynous and borderline sociophobic. Munroe can and does deal with people in terms of acquiring the information and she can easily slip into any role, but her world is a lonely, isolated one. She has only two people in the world that she connects with, one of whom manages her business interests and the other who looks after her prize possession and sources gadgets and things she needs for her work for her. I think any female who is tough, ferrets out information and has issues is going to end up being compared to Lisbeth Salander. I tried not to focus on that too much and just try and enjoy Munroe as a character in her own right independent of anyone else but the thing is, she somehow isn’t enjoyable. Salander, for all her quirks and manner, was. Munroe just didn’t go over the same way for me.

I really liked Miles Bradford, even though he’s not really a large part of the book and was hoping he’d play more of a role than he did. I found Munroe a bit more likable when she was around him – less highly strung and paranoid, the way she was with her drug/gun-running ex-boss or whatever you would term him as. I didn’t enjoy him as a character, nor did I enjoy the sort of relationship they had and I definitely liked Munroe a lot less when he was around.

The actual mystery of what happened to Emily seemed to be a very small part of the book – it was more about Munroe and her mad skills which I didn’t notice when I was reading it, because I was absorbed in the details of traveling through Africa. At times the book does lag a bit as they move from either country to country or one part of a country to another and it seems like nothing is really happening but overall there’s quite a lot of action. There’s a sequel, The Innocent  as well and I think that will help cement how I feel about Munroe as a lead character and the potential this has of being a good series that can stay fresh. It’s hard to maintain ‘protagonist awesomeness’ and also have lots of tension, drama and danger. There were things that bothered me after I’d finished reading this one and had time to think about them and I’d like to not have those doubts with the next one.

7/10

Book #35 of 2012