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Those raised in the Roman Catholic faith of a couple of generations or so ago are familiar with the concept of a guardian angel. I'm not talking Curtis Silwa here; I'm talking about a spirit that was supposed to cover your back, protect you from evil companions. I'm not sure if they left us, or we left them, but they don't really seem to be around anymore. Or maybe they are, and things would be much worse if they weren't on the job. I shudder to think.
The Gardner family in Peter Abraham's latest thriller, THE TUTOR, needs a guardian angel. Scott, the husband and father, is a partner in a successful family insurance business but is constantly in his brother's shadow (and in ways he doesn't even realize). Linda, the wife and mother, is a successful career woman but is unable to successfully balance the dual demands of job and family. Teenage son Brandon is slipping loose of his moorings, all too ready to blow off school and go drinking with his best bud. Zippy, the family dog, is a total screw-up, the terror of the house and the neighborhood. Ruby, the 11-year-old daughter, seems to pass unnoticed in the midst of this maelstrom, content to do her work, juggle the tennis classes, which she hates, with the archery classes, which she loves, and retreat into the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. And there you have the Gardners, sort of an upper-class "Malcolm in the Middle," if you will.
It is into this that Julian Sawyer, THE TUTOR, interjects himself. When Brandon's grades go south and his SAT scores aren't up to the Ivy League standards to which his parents aspire, the Gardners turn to a tutorial service, which, due to one of those last minute turns of fate, sends Sawyer. Sawyer, almost from the minute he steps into the Gardner house, seems to have all of the answers. Intelligent, personable, well-read, he appears capable of solving each and all of the Gardners' collective problems. Sawyer arguably saves Linda's job with a suggestion; he helps Scott with his tennis game; he relates quickly and easily with Brandon, showing him math tricks that he can readily apply to textbook problems; he even brings the hapless Zippy to heal. Sawyer is also a very good listener, and one by one, the Gardners confide in him. As we watch Sawyer collect these secrets and hold them close to his vest, we feel a vague uneasiness, a feeling that is confirmed, quite dramatically, a little less than a third of the way through THE TUTOR.
The Gardners' biggest problem is THE TUTOR; he is like the vampyr of legend, come a-tapping on their window, and they have bade him enter. Only Ruby, with her volume of Sherlock Holmes' mysteries, suspects that something is not right. When she begins to sense that Sawyer is going to turn the family's secrets against them, she finds, quite quickly, that the member of the family most in danger is herself.
Abrahams is at the top of his game here, infusing new life into a theme that, while done before, has not heretofore been done quite as well. His subtle sketching of each member of the Gardner family is first rate; he reveals personality facets of each member of the family so well that the depth of what he is doing --- basically juggling five protagonists and never dropping a ball --- is not immediately evident, making the incredibly difficult look easy. The result is a thriller that is a notch or five above the rest, both an entertainment and a cautionary tale. THE TUTOR will resonate, and haunt, long after the final page is read.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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