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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Joanna do when Rotenhausen unstraps her?

2. Where do Joanna and Alex fly to from England?

3. What does Joanna confirm about Rotenhausen?

4. What do Joanna and Alex have to do after they rent a car to leave England?

5. What was Alex's nightmare about the night they spent in the inn?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who is Peterson and how was he involved in the entire situation?

2. How does Alex feel about the inn where they stop and what does it make him wonder? What type of theme might his situation bring up?

3. What do Alex and Joanna find that show Chelgrin in a different light and what does he have that will help them find Herr Doktor?

4. What does Chelgrin know about his daughter and what does he seem to feel about her?

5. What does the hypnosis session do in the novel as far as narrative technique is concerned?

6. What bad decision does Rotenhausen make and how does Joanna use it to save herself?

7. Why did Peterson do what he did and what theme does it touch upon again?

8. Who approaches Joanna and Alex immediately in London? What might the reader wonder and what does the person say that alleviates concern?

9. Who does Joanna find when she goes to look for Alex? What does she learn from him? What theme might be suggested by the encounter?

10. Where is Alex when he wakes up and what does he do immediately? What does he find and what does it make him wonder?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Peterson admits that he and the CIA brainwashed Alex into going to Kyoto to find Joanna so they could follow well-placed clues to bring them to St. Moritz. Peterson says the CIA needed Chelgrin to die before he could be elected President, but could not do it themselves for fear it would tip off the Russians that Chelgrin has been compromised for many years.

1. How would you feel and what would you do if you were Alex?

2. Peterson, a C.I.A. agent freely admits to Alex being brainwashed by the C.I.A. Discuss what you think the possibility is that in real life the C.I.A. would do something like this.

3. Should Alex be considered a hero for taking care of a national security problem for the U.S. government in spite of doing it unknowingly? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Alex realizes he has seen Joanna before. She was a kidnap case he worked on. The chances that Alex would end up in the city where this woman has been hiding out for twelve years seems to be astronomical, tipping the reader off to the idea that something may be at work here that is not completely clear at this point.

1. Do you think Alex ending up in a city half way across the world and walking into a lounge where the singer is the woman he had looked for ten years earlier is a stretch of the imagination? Why or why not?

2. After researching narrative contrivance explain, with examples of why you think the above situation may or may not be one.

3. Discuss a remarkable coincidence that has occurred in your life, in the life of someone you knew or one that you heard or read about. Include in your discussion why it might illustrate the saying: "Life is stranger than fiction."

Essay Topic 3

Mariko then suggests again that Joanna visit her uncle and undergo hypnosis. This is the third time Mariko has mentioned this option, foreshadowing that it would become an avenue Joanna would travel.

1. What do you think a psychiatrist can do to help someone with nightmares?

2. Would you go to a psychiatrist for help with a recurring nightmare?

3. Why do you think many people resist the idea of seeing a psychiatrist? Do you think Joanna is one of those people? Or is it perhaps part of the brainwashing that she has been through?

(see the answer keys)

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