GOODBYE DEMONS is an interesting but flawed novel. Set at the turn of the 1980s, it details a fictional episode in the Jimmy Carter administration's Iranian hostage crisis. Angie is a figure skater whose attempt at glory goes awry when she sustains a serious injury. Shortly she meets James, a career diplomat, and marries him. A posting to Iran soon follows. But when the U.S. embassy is taken over during the Iranian Revolution, James is taken hostage and Angie looks for ways to get him back—including an audacious, privately financed rescue attempt.

A former member of the U.S. Foreign Service, author J.J. Harrigan has an excellent familiarity with the workings of government and foreign policy. Close attention is paid to Angie’s internal motivations, which makes her a seemingly well-rounded character in the opening third of the novel. Angie’s adoptive father, Charlie, is by contrast calculating, corrupt, and manipulative—eager to meddle in her affairs and drive a wedge between her and her husband-to-be. James’s sufferings while captive are told with commendable restraint.

But developments in Angie’s life following the news of that captivity require more than a little indulgence on the part of the reader to accept. Angie’s concern about Jimmy Carter attempting “some reckless commando raid” to retrieve the hostages when she is trying to organize exactly the same thing is absurd, and wealthy businessman Jim Bob’s willingness to fund such an illicit and eye-wateringly expensive operation merely because Angie “deserves” to try has more than a hint of plot contrivance about it (some lampshading regarding his making money on the side notwithstanding). The fact that she emerges from this episode intact is scarcely believable.

Angie’s segue from laser-focused athlete to hopeless naïf (she is apparently under the impression that she can simply take up with James as though nothing had happened) make her a difficult person to like. The off-beat ending is likewise mystifying, lacking in affect and closure. However, fans of this genre may still get most of what they want out of GOODBYE DEMONS.

Although J.J. Harrigan's GOODBYE DEMONS benefits from realistic depictions of the Iranian hostage crisis, the protagonist's naïveté works against likeability.

~ Craig Jones for IndieReader