SOURCE: "The Reluctant Terrorist," in The New York Times Book Review, September 2, 1990, pp. 1, 23.

Prose is an American novelist, short story writer, and educator. In the following excerpt, she commends the suspenseful plotting, austere prose, and "thematic weight" of Lies of Silence.

Nothing cheers a writer so little as well-intentioned commiseration for not having attained the vast readership admirers think one deserves. And yet there are certain authors whose gifts so exceed their renown that their situation inevitably inspires this sort of unhelpful puzzlement and indignation.

One such writer is Brian Moore, whose 16th novel, Lies of Silence, is characteristically first rate. The recipient of major awards in Canada and Britain, Mr. Moore has so far failed to achieve what the pollsters succinctly call "name recognition" in the United States, perhaps because his work ranges so widely, from intense novels of sensibility (The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne) to...