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The Exile Kiss by George Alec Effinger
01/09/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: TOR/Orb. 315 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US), $19.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-765-31360-X. Buy The Exile Kiss in the USA - or Buy The Exile Kiss in the UK  check out website: www.tor.com
This is the third and final book of the adventures of Marîd Audran by the late author George Alec Effinger. The last time we met Audran, he had been persuaded to work as an enforcer for Friedlander Bey, who sired him as he discovered in the second book. He's also equipped with brain attachments called moddies and daddies to either modulate his behaviour or provide specialised skills. The reality Audran lives in is Muslim but set in the future and you shouldn't hold sway to what we know now cos there isn't a burka in sight.
Audran and Bey are left out in the distant Arabian Desert to die after having trumped up murder charges convicting them without appeal. A fit-up in other words. There, they are on the point of dying when they are rescued by the Bayt Tabiti tribe. Rivalries that result in the death of a girl teaches Audran something about flushing out murderers. They both return to the city and attempt to clear their names before the month's deadline and already Audran is facing another trumped up murder charge when the city coroner is killed.
With so much of this story away from the city, there is more akin to regular Arab Muslim mannerisms and customs albeit done through a somewhat American mindset, hence my reservations with the previous two books, 'When Gravity Fails' and 'A Fire In The Sun', that have been reviewed here. This reviewer does find the suspense angle somewhat reduced when they get back to the city and the lesson from the desert tribe not exploited enough. In fact, Effinger seems to lose this thread as a means of comparison towards the end of the story. Although it doesn't quite distract reading, the allegory issue is lost and can't be certain if it was intentional or the plot was lost. This is a shame really as Effinger did write likeable characters.
If you're reading this book as a means to understand the Muslim mindset then don't. Even from a cyberpunk look, there is something sorely missing. Saying that, if you're not bothered by such things, they make an interesting romp providing you don't take them too seriously.
GF Willmetts
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