Prisoner from Penang
Clare Flynn’s short, chatty new historical romance is set in Malaysia during the World War II years, and it’s a pleasant afternoon’s read.
Mary Helston, the narrator, is a former teacher in her early thirties. As the book opens, Mary has been evacuated from Penang to Singapore, and she is soon thrust into the swirl of war. Mary has been engaged twice, but as the book opens, her second fiancé, an RAF pilot, has been shot down in combat against the Japanese. Her previous fiancé killed himself after an affair with a married woman.
That married woman, the wealthy aristocrat Veronica Leighton, is Mary’s nemesis. Veronica’s affair with Mary’s first fiancé caused his suicide, Mary believes, and Veronica also made a play for Mary’s second fiancé and tormented Evie Barrington, a widow who is Mary’s best friend.
As Japan advances and the occupation begins, British colonists are rounded up by the Japanese. Mary, her mother, and Veronica are among the women shipped off to Japanese prison camps where for years they suffer the abuses of war.
The British characters are mostly good, especially Mary, and the Japanese entirely bad. The scenes at the prison camps are realistically rendered, but Mary is a passive character, likeable but mostly swept along by events. After several acts of kindness during their captivity, Mary comes to realize Veronica is more noble than she imagined.
Flynn’s book reads much like a diary of the war years, and she creates a conventional happy ending for long-suffering, self-lacerating Mary. After the war, the little British colony of Penang was absorbed into the country now known as Malaysia.
