Montaro Caine is Sidney Poitier’s first novel. Mr Sidney Poitier is one of my heroes. His movie career is laced with some of the best stuff out there. So when I saw his name on the spine of a book at the library, I paused, I hesitated, I considered the ramifications of what I saw, a novel by Sidney Poitier? This is a no brainer, I said to myself.
Dr Caine dies in an airplane crash before he can give a gift from a genius boy, Luther, to his son Montaro. How did Luther know Dr Caine had a son? And what is the seventh ship Luther refers to? Before we know it we are fifty years into the future and speeding along. There is intrigue around every corner. A pair of rare and out of this world coins delivered in the palms of newborns predicted by a doctor in a remote Caribbean Island, an MIT assistant who has become a powerful CEO whose company is in trouble, that CEO’s prep school daughter in trouble, that CEO recalling details of twenty-six years ago when he examined one of the coins and then is asked to examine another similar coin, he becomes embroiled in a harrowing international race to discover the secrets of these celestial coins. And he also has to watch his back as he has spies and traitors in his own company planning a takeover if not outright coup d’etat. This is a high paced novel so keep the seatbelts tight.
These coins seem to have a life of their own as they bounce around, create chaos, and keep reconstituting themselves. Montaro is delving into cosmic conversations, the classic philosophical matter of predestination and free will. Matthew Perch, that doctor in the islands who healed terminally ill patients keeps popping up and even Luther reemerges as Montaro searches his dad’s briefcase for answers to the riddles before him, which are about the coins and even life. Everything seems to be collapsing around Montaro, but once again his grandfather at ninty-nine comes through for him. The purpose of the coins is fulfilled, the truth is revealed, and order comes from chaos, greed, and deception.
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