Branch Point by Mona Clee
On January 21, five of us met at Adventures in Crime and Space to discuss Branch Point, a first novel by former Austinite Mona Clee. Two people who couldn’t attend the meeting e-mailed comments about the novel. The story was a new twist on time travel, with a group of teenagers from 2063 traveling back to various events in the late 20th century trying to prevent nuclear disaster. Notably, the book uses recent and current political figures (especially Presidents Kennedy and Clinton) as major characters in the story. An initial gripping chain of events got us hurtling through the first 60 pages or so, but some of us felt the plot lost inertia and focus in the latter part of the book. Several bizarre historical facts (Colonel Sanders was almost a Vice Presidential candidate in the 60s?) were used as springboards for ingenious plot twists. We felt this was a strong first novel, and we’re looking forward to Ms. Clee’s next book.
–A. T. Campbell, III