Ivory by Tony Park

First published in Australia in 2009; published by St. Martin's Press on November 17, 2015

Alex Tremain is a good looking pirate, a kind-hearted rogue with a sad background, making him the kind of bad boy that seems destined to star in a trashy romance novel. Unsurprisingly, the key female character, Jane, is attracted to him, even after his pirate gang hijacks the cargo ship that is bringing her to Johannesburg and kidnaps her in the belief that she is holding valuable treasure. Jane doesn’t know the nature of the treasure, but she has a hunch it belongs to her wealthy employer, with whom she is having an affair.

Naturally, Alex’s good nature is at odds with a more evil pirate in his crew, the kind of pirate who thinks that Jane should be tortured in predictable ways. And naturally, as a kind-hearted rogue, Alex would rather con women than torture them, leading to a predictable conflict with the evil pirate who turns into one of the novel’s chief villains.

Alex is too contrived to be a believable character. He is a socially and ecologically conscious pirate who won’t smuggle people or drugs or timber or wildlife. In fact, he secretly reports illegal fishing vessels to the police, because illegal fishing is much worse than boarding vessels and stealing from everyone on board. His desire to “start afresh as an honest man” doesn’t ring true because Alex is too honest and decent to have gone into the piracy business in the first place. I’ve enjoyed many novels in which the protagonist is a thief or other brand of criminal, but they are usually lighter fare, not meant to be taken seriously. Tony Park never convinced me that Alex was anything other than the stereotypical (and mythical) “bad boy” of romance fiction, the kind that women can feel safe about loving since they know he won’t actually hurt anyone. Or, at least, he’ll only hurt people who deserve it. Is there a bigger cliché in fiction?

Jane is also a stereotype. She’s in love with her married boss, one of those hopeless situations that can only be resolved by falling in love with a dashing pirate. She feels “a jolt of electricity” when Alex brushes his fingers against her arm and “her heart was pounding fast” after Alex tells her “I only have eyes for you.” Too many cheesy lines like that are a disappointment in a novel that is otherwise capably written.

The cheesy parts of Ivory are too predictably cheesy. Alex sees in Jane a reason to “redeem his wasted life.” Everything that happens between them is so predictable, and described in such torrid detail, that I had to check to see if I had chosen to read a “new adult romance” by mistake. Ivory isn’t marketed that way, but it is more a tawdry romance novel than it is a thriller.

I liked the descriptions of Mozambique and South Africa. The novel works relatively well when it sticks to action scenes, although even then Park takes a series of missteps. The biggest involves an elephant hunt that has Alex encountering an elephant he remembers from his childhood, all so that we can see once more what a great guy Alex is. Seriously?

The valuable treasure that Alex is pursuing from Jane borders on the ridiculous, but it is in keeping with the plot as a whole. That “surprise” was the final straw that kept me from recommending this novel, at least to thriller fans. I suspect that romance fiction fans will like it, but I can’t recommend it to anyone else with any enthusiasm.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS