Roland Hughes’s TWENTY OF TWO THE INFAMOUS THEY, FIVE NUCLEAR WARS YOU CAN WIN is a strange, complex novel. It concerns Old Timer, an assassin who is employed by he knows not whom; “they” give him orders, provide him with new identities, and bring him cash so he can pull triggers, steal industrial secrets, and the like—all on a part-time basis. The world is familiar yet speculative, while the mood is alternately noirish, deadly serious, and low-key comical.
The novel covers an extraordinary amount of ground, taking in espionage, cybersecurity, nuclear geopolitics, and other topics. Digs at today’s political scene surface here and there, but ultimately the atmosphere is what counts. In a novel of this length and tone, ambiance is everything, and anecdotage and wanderings off the point are de rigueur. The opening scene—set in a dive bar in which Old Timer gets hit on by a single mother of three, despite his best efforts—lasts for almost 50 pages. If it weren't for the occasional stabs of droll humor, it would stand nicely as a bit of slice-of-life lit, being both well-observed and, in its way, tender.
The downside is that the lede is thoroughly buried. Not all assassins have to be John Wick in either demeanor or dealing, but Old Timer’s internal monologue is dilatory to a fault. His back-and-forths with various characters usually serve to explicate his worldview. He seemingly has an opinion on everything, from smartphone use to women’s approaches to men; from the best way to drink Chardonnay to the finer points of counterfeiting money. More than 100 pages of this 570-plus-page novel goes by before we get anything resembling a plot.
Perhaps TWENTY OF TWO THE INFAMOUS THEY, FIVE NUCLEAR WARS YOU CAN WIN’s biggest problem is one of narrative overload. Like its title, the novel tries to do too much. In truth, there are perhaps a dozen ideas within it that would have sustained a tight, focused thriller, or a leisurely character study. Instead, Hughes opts to throw everything into the mix. The gambit almost works; some passages are bleakly funny, others exciting, and several shock the reader into a numb silence by the weight of human horror they convey. But, as a whole, whether the impressive conjuring of mood compensates for the narrative’s excesses will depend on the reader.
Roland Hughes’s TWENTY OF TWO THE INFAMOUS THEY, FIVE NUCLEAR WARS YOU CAN WIN features some impressive scene-setting and evocation of moods, but also an unfocused and meandering plot.
—Craig Jones for IndieReader