The Special Prisoner Book

An overwhelming sense of symmetry permeates The Special Prisoner, but it doesn't come in the lovely, harmonious, balanced variety. Instead it's the terrifying symmetry of life at its most basic, of innocence, guilt, death, and rebirth. Jim Lehrer's hero, Bishop John Quincy Watson, is imprisoned alternately in physical and metaphysical realms throughout the novel, a "man of God and grace" who comes to wrestle with a "long-dormant barbaric monster ... waiting in his soul." This retired Methodist is an all-American boy who did his duty for his country in World War II at a high personal cost. Shot down over Tokyo on his 17th mission as the young pilot of a B-29 Superfortress, Watson spent the rest of the war in a Japanese POW camp. Designed specifically for bomber crews--who were considered the worst of the White Devils--it was run by a particularly ruthless guard called the Hyena. As the novel opens, the now 70-year-old, crippled Bishop has just spotted Tashimoto, the Hyena, in an airport in Texas, casually boarding a plane. Memories of the camp come flooding back and slam head-on into what Watson had presumed was a rock-solid wall of spiritual piety, and he quickly sets off on a mission of revenge. He tracks his prey to a hotel room in San Diego, and what happens next plunges him into recollections of unspeakable horror, changing his life irrevocably. The novel becomes a vicious game of back and forth between past and present, captor and captive; the Bishop unwittingly slides in and out of each role as he confronts the demon without and ousts the demon within. But is Tashimoto really the demon he seeks? If not, what monsters of delusion has the Bishop actually let loose? Lehrer explores questions of guilt, shame, forgiveness, and self-examination with an obvious passion, if not intellectual rigor, and his eye for detail is sharp. He intertwines the stories with the precision of a chainlink fence, using such devices as the interplay between the Hyena's bamboo stick and the crippled Bishop's cane. The Special Prisoner is a densely packed, suspenseful read that gets more captivating as it gathers speed. --S. KetchumRead More