A mystery in the Mojave

The Other Americans. By Laila Lalami.Pantheon; 320 pages; $25.95. Bloomsbury Circus; £16.99.

LAILA LALAMI’S debut novel, “Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits”, charted the plight of four desperate Moroccans who attempt to flee their country and cross the Strait of Gibraltar in search of a better life. In “The Moor’s Account” she gave voice to a real-life Moroccan slave who accompanied a Spanish conquistador on a disastrous expedition to the modern-day Gulf coast of the United States. In both books, characters learned the hard way that it is better to travel in hope than to arrive.

Ms Lalami’s latest novel, “The Other Americans”, revolves around a Moroccan family who are not travellers but long-term settlers. Nora Guerraoui, a young jazz composer, receives a call in Oakland informing her that her father, Driss, has been killed by a speeding car. She returns to her childhood home-town in the Mojave desert to join her mother Maryam and follow the police investigation. Was the death a tragic accident or a premeditated killing?

The story unfolds from multiple perspectives. Maryam reflects on the life she left in Casablanca, the culture shock of California and her fragmented family: “We were like a thrift-store tea set, there was always one piece missing.” Efraín, a Mexican eyewitness, is reluctant to give evidence because he lacks papers. Coleman, a detective, is as keen to solve her first homicide in town as to decipher her son’s mood swings.

Two main characters emerge from the ensemble: Nora and her former classmate Jeremy, now a veteran of the Iraq war. As a romance develops between them, he comforts her through her grief and she helps him cope with his trauma. The narrative opens out to become a tender love story, a family drama and a gripping mystery.

When Ms Lalami brings in other minor characters and relays their versions of events, she loses momentum and the book becomes episodic. But she recovers the pace to orchestrate a charged denouement in which secrets are shared, loyalties tested and fates hang in the balance. The result is a powerful novel of intolerance and compassion, resilience and weakness, love and loss, populated by flawed but sympathetic characters whose lives are rocked by actions and emotions beyond their control. It turns out that this family’s journey was not quite finished, after all.