The Bottom Line: A clever action comedy that manages to be both quirky and endearing while packing a sneaky emotional punch.
The Crisis opens on a Monday, as Florida Pay-N-Save convenience store workers Mattie and Calvin survive an armed robbery. But during the incident, Mattie notes that something seems off with the criminal couple – a muscled man and a young girl with a number tattooed on her leg. On their way out, the girl drops a note that reads: “You help me. Blue Honda mini-van going to Salt Springs. Someone named Stanley.”
Mattie, suspecting the girl is being trafficked, takes off toward Salt Springs in her less-than-reliable station wagon, Dory. Why doesn’t she simply call the police, you might ask? A painful experience from her past tells her that the police wouldn’t believe her. (Unfortunately, this note is insufficient for the police to pull over that mini-van). To her surprise, Calvin – who Mattie suspects may be autistic or perhaps just weird – pops up in the back. He’s a completely unintentional stowaway, having hidden there simply because he thought it might be safe. He doesn’t want to go to Salt Springs, but alas, it’s too late to turn back. Mattie had a cousin who was trafficked, and as far as she’s concerned, there’s not a moment to waste.
Author T.O. Paine, author of wildly imaginative thriller The Delusion, tells the story in alternating first-person points of view. Chapters told from Mattie’s POV reveal a person who wants to be anywhere other than where she is, but eases her pain through internal gallows humor. Her voice is not strikingly dissimilar in tone to chapters told by the tattooed girl herself, Lucia. Faced with an extremely dire future, Lucia’s observations still manage to be amusing (“This is not the bad boy she fell for. He’s much worse. It’s like aliens came and replaced him yesterday morning”).
Adding to the fun are chapters told from the point of view of Dmitri Belkin, a tattoo artist who traveled to Cuba in the early 1960s – the era in which the book gets its name (“You gringos called it the Cuban Missile Crisis, but it wasn’t our fault.”). There’s also Jack, a private investigator who has been hired to find Lucia and bring her back. Jack knows Lucia has been kidnapped, but isn’t convinced she needs saving (it’s complicated).
Striking a style that lands somewhere between the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson, Paine has inhabited his universe with offbeat characters, a nuclear missile, a manatee, a car parts shredder and a car crusher, among other delights. The result is a quirky crime thriller that is as amusing and heartfelt as it is thrilling.
