Budding writers are usually advised to write about what they know. This is certainly the case for British author Anna Blundy, who writes the Faith Zanetti series. Faith Zanetti is a hard-drinking foreign correspondent for a London newspaper. Her father Karel Zanetti, also a foreign correspondent, was killed while on assignment. Anna Blundy’s father was a war correspondent who was killed in El Salvador. Many of the locales that Bundy uses in this series are locales, which have been important in her life— El Salvador, Jerusalem, Moscow, Italy and England.
On her website Bundy does a fictional interview between herself and her alter ego Faith. She describes Zanetti as gritty, brave, bright and beautiful. “…the kind of beauty that has survived fifteen years of chain smoking hangovers and no end of blistering wars around the world.” Faith speaks in a rapid-fire manner and wears her hair in a wild blond Afro. Romantically she has an on again/off again relationship with another reporter Eden Jones, who is the father of her son Ben. He lives in Tuscony. She lives in London. Her favorite drink is vodka.
Like other Faith Zanetti novels, “Breaking Faith” is semi-autobiographical. In it Zanetti is assigned by her editor to cover the 25th anniversary of a Lockerbie-type airliner bombing that killed 245 people. The editor believes there is more to the story than has been reported. Although Libyans were blamed for the attack, he wants Faith to identify who phoned a warning beforehand. Faith’s search uncovers dark secrets that lead to her father and his illegitimate child who also died on the aircraft.
“Breaking Faith” is a novel with many twists and turns. What begins as a search for terrorists moves on to spies and a variety of clandestine activities. Faith begins to receive what are apparently messages from her long deceased father. Her search for answers will take her to Sicily and an unexpected Mafia connection, which may change the total course of the series.
“Breaking Faith” is not a novel for everyone. Anna Blundy’s style has a definite British flavor. Her writing is fast paced. As a former newspaper correspondent, she is familiar with the newsroom vocabulary and does not hesitate to use profanity. However, once readers become accustomed to her style, language and “British-isms”, they will find in Faith Zanetti a memorable character. “Breaking Faith” is an unpredictable novel with a plot twist at the end that may catch readers unawares. Those, who enjoy Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, may also find Anna Blundy’s Faith Zanetti to their liking. To this point, the library only has one book in the series. If a fan base develops for Faith Zanetti, more books will be purchased.
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