The Oregon Project.

• Author: Poniewaz, Carrie May
• Position: Book review

The Oregon Project By Natasha Roit

The Oregon Project's opening scene is an intriguingly fearsome alley, where a bound victim finds himself facing sure death at the hands of three mysterious villains. But just as swiftly as this lurid setting draws the reader in, a series of introspective questions causes the narrative to trail off into vapid presentations of back story and pointless ponderings.

The misfortune of this stream of consciousness is not so much in its tedium as it is in its potential to turn the reader off to an otherwise gripping tale of deceit and shady dealings. Full of scheming characters entwined by interconnected storylines after the opening blunder, The Oregon Project has all the elements of a breezy legal thriller that keeps readers turning the pages well past bedtime.

The story launches when a pretrial hearing leads to a plea deal involving a light sentence for the accused in exchange for information that could help the prosecutor beat his unscrupulous boss in an upcoming election. The arrangement eventually leads to a shake-down of Chinese mobsters, arrests of certain wealthy political supporters, and a whole lot of trouble for the young prosecutor, Mitch Landau.

Meanwhile, a lonely but successful and impossibly beautiful art dealer named Tess Lowe meets Charlie, a handsome real estate...