The Sanctuary

Starred review from November 20, 2023
Near-future thrillers don’t come much better than this stellar effort from Murray (The Last Day). Painter Ben Parr lives in an unnamed nation whose monarchy and wildlife are in decline due in part to the changing climate. His fiancée, Cara Sharpe, has escaped the decaying city where she and Ben live for a private island community called Sanctuary Rock, which is owned and managed by Sir John Pemberley. Cara’s letters to Ben, which have grown more and more emotionally distant during her stay, hint at “critical work” being conducted at Sanctuary Rock. When Cara fails to return home as planned, she writes to Ben that she will be staying on the island indefinitely to help Pemberley with his “mission.” Alarmed, Ben sets out to retrieve her. When he reaches Sanctuary Rock, however, Cara isn’t there, and Ben starts to suspect that she’s been recruited for something horrifying. Murray excels at building a believable futuristic environment without getting bogged down in minutiae, and he wrings plenty of suspense out of Ben’s increasingly harrowing investigation of Sanctuary Rock’s mysterious purpose. This fires on all cylinders. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management.

November 15, 2023
An island thrives on a planet in crisis. The world is slowly dying. One species after another is becoming extinct, and the last elephant has died. In this cheery world, portraitist Ben Parr is engaged to Cara Sharpe, who's currently working on Sanctuary Rock, an island off the mainland. He earns his living by painting portraits of folks in wealthy enclaves called Villages--whenever he'd drive away from them, "the aura of money disappeared from the land, ray by ray." But on the island is the ultimate Village, secretive and exclusive. Ben and Cara regularly exchange letters until she writes that she's not coming back. Well, this is no good. Cara and his painting are Ben's whole life, so he decides to go get her from this island to which no ferries go. He borrows a boat and nearly kills himself in the crossing, a brave act for one who says that "cowardice always was a weed scattered through the underbrush of my character." A clinic cares for his wounds and asks who he is because he doesn't belong there. He meets the super-wealthy Sir John Pemberley--just John, please--the man in charge. The island is almost completely disconnected from the mainland and will soon cut the final cord. Then they expect to survive and thrive while the rest of the world does neither. But all Ben really wants is to find Cara. Where is she? And what's really happening on the island? Why is everyone so young? How did they eliminate rats, thus allowing seafowl to flourish again? The interesting answer matters more than just to birds. Ben is loaded with angst, but he paints and writes well, occasionally using curious words like rejectamenta and rugose. Will he ever find Cara--alive? One false note: "The very worst acts in history have been committed by men acting for the good." Oh, really? Like Auschwitz? A suspenseful read with a dystopian theme.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

December 1, 2023
Murray follows The Last Day (2020) with a different sort of postapocalyptic story. The world is collapsing, society disintegrating. But there is hope: the spectacularly wealthy John Pemberley has created self-contained, self-sufficient communities called Villages, where people can ride out the end of the world in relative comfort. Pemberley himself lives in a community on Sanctuary Rock, an isolated island, where Cara, who is engaged to be married to struggling portrait painter Ben Parr, is working for Pemberley. It was supposed to be a term contract, but when Cara's latest letter seems to suggest she is leaving Ben, and staying on the island, Ben sets off to find her and (he hopes) bring her home. What he discovers will distress and shock him. Murray employs a lightly ornamented writing style, which perfectly suits the world he's built, one that is reminiscent of the early 1800s, with travel times between communities measured in days and long expanses of emptiness between pockets of civilization. A novel that pulls you in immediately and doesn't let go until the last page.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.