Border Songs

March 30, 2009
Lynch digs into the strange culture of a U.S.-Canada border town in his lush second novel (after The Highest Tide
). Brandon Vanderkool, the town freak people talk about “the way they discuss earthquakes, eclipses and other phenomena,†is pushed into joining the Border Patrol by his dairy-farmer father. Though the dyslexic, six-foot-eight Brandon prefers to bird-watch and tend to the cows on his father's farm, he proves to be surprisingly adept at spotting drug smugglers and illegal immigrants, which brings a wave of attention to both him and the town. The illegal goings-on provide excellent plot fodder, though the novel is equally concerned with smalltown life: Brandon's mother is noticing the first sign of Alzheimer's; his father's struggling dairy farm hits a low point when his herd becomes diseased; a local masseuse records the town's activities with her camera; and the beautiful, enigmatic Madeline provides an object of affection for Brandon. Lynch's depiction of the natural world and his deep sympathy for his characters carry the book, and while it's a bit quiet, there are majestic moments.

May 1, 2009
Tensions on the U.S.-Canadian border disrupt a neighborhood in Lynch's entertaining second novel (The Highest Tide, 2005).

Only a ditch separates one part of British Columbia from Washington State; it's narrow enough for prickly, left-wing Canadian Wayne Rousseau to exchange insults with his American neighbor, Norm Vanderkool. A retired professor with MS, Wayne makes use of a legal remedy: smoking cannabis. The more conventional Norm is a dairy farmer with sick cows and a wife losing her memory. Both men have interesting children. Madeline Rousseau, running wild since her mother's death, has started growing bud indoors for Canadian kingpin Toby, but it's her erstwhile school friend Brandon Vanderkool who's the star of the show, towering over the other characters literally (he's 6'8") and figuratively. Dyslexic 23-year-old Brandon has a hard time with people but an amazing affinity for animals and birds, his passion. Pushed into joining the Border Patrol by Norm, he barely passed the test (he's a lousy shot), but once on the job he's a sensation. Starting with a spectacular flying tackle of two hapless border-crossers, Brandon makes bust after bust of illegals and drug smugglers, seemingly without effort. Lynch presents a three-ring circus. In ring number one, the BP agents. Number two, the Canadian growers and smugglers. In the third ring, the Americans on the border, mostly dairy farmers tempted by easy money for letting smugglers cross their property. The action (there's plenty of it) is shot through with wry humor and intermittent suspense. Brandon remains an innocent, albeit"an innocent who's bad for business," as Toby says darkly. Guns are in evidence. Maddy deceives the trusting, lovestruck Brandon about her involvement. We seem headed for a major, possibly tragic confrontation, but it doesn't happen, and the story slowly deflates.

Forget the shaky plot. What's memorable is the masterful use of Brandon as a bridge between the human world, foolish and chaotic, and the more ordered universe of birds.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 15, 2009
Six foot eight and dyslexic, Brandon Vanderkool has trouble relating to people, but he's supremely knowledgeable about birds. His dad doesn't think he's cut out for dairy farming, so Brandon ends up in the Border Patrol ruling the divide between Washington and Canada. Though he spends most of his time bird watching, smugglers and illegals keep falling his way, and he soon has a reputation as the patrol's top man. Meanwhile, his father struggles with the farm, his mother struggles with incipient Alzheimer's, a Canadian girl that Brandon's sweet on struggles with her decision to cultivate pot to smuggle across the border, and a new neighbor delights in interviewing everyone. This might sound like an offbeat, aw-shucks comedy or a setup for social tragedy, but, remarkably, Lynch ("The Highest Tide") does something different. Playing on our current fears, he show us that the divides among people aren't good, then offers a tenderly convincing ending that's not sentimental. Most readers should love. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" /1/09.]Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2009
Lynchs second novel (following The Highest Tide, 2005) returns to the Pacific Northwest for another engaging, even heartwarming, encounter with the quirky individualists populating the nations upper-left-hand corner. Brandon Vanderkool is a severely dyslexic, six-foot-eight-inch border-patrol officer charged with guarding the nearly invisible line between Washington State and British Columbia. An obsessive bird-watcher, Brandon has often jumped over the ditch dividing the countries in search of avian adventures, but today that porous border has become a throughway for pot smugglers and, potentially, terrorists. Lynch focuses not on the global implications of the border traffic but, instead, on the effect it has on the sleepy communities lining the ditch. Brandon turnsout to be an idiot savant when it comes to catching smugglers, but his reluctantly cast net is sweeping ever closer to Madeline Rousseau, who grew up right across the ditch and now has turned her green thumb into a lucrative marijuana-harvesting gig. Every character in Lynchs tale is memorable, each etched with distinctive lines and endearing idiosyncrasies. If the ending seems a bit too Capraesque, its well worth it for the chance to hang out with Brandon, whose appeal is much like that of Odell Deefus in Torsten Krols Callisto (2009).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)