Master of the Delta

Thomas Cook's Master of the Delta is a suspense novel built around foreshadowing.  At about 2/3 of the way through, nothing actually suspenseful has happened, and yet the tension is incredible, because Cook's narrator tells us in many ways that things will end up badly, though he hasn't told us how.

Cook's foreshadowing is sometimes so deft and yet at others so heavy-handed that it's hard to believe one author wrote the book.  His narrator, Jack Branch, is looking back to events from 1954, when he encouraged one of his students to write a paper about the student's father, he was arrested for killing a girl, then killed in prison without a trial.  Branch interweaves reflections on what ended up happening to the characters in later life, as well as transcripts from a trial (the trial seems to have sprung from what the student learned while writing his paper).  These are really well handled, giving a sense of depth to characters who might otherwise be ciphers, as well as feeling like an actual part of the story as Jack Branch sees it.  He's known these people for 40 years (or whatever the number is), and so when he looks back he also sees what they've done in between 1954 and his present.

And then there are all the sentences that add nothing but a "had I but known..."  ("But I was young, and didn't know the havoc this could cause."  That sort of thing)  At this point, there are so many that they're more of a speed bump than a serious literary device.  Had Cook removed 2/3 of them, the remaining ones would probably be stronger.