Since starting this web site some six months ago, I think I've read more fiction than over any similar period in my life. It began with the desire to feature about ten books, but then expanded when I wanted to represent cultures I had no previous interest in. It's just snowballed from there.
I don't think any book has given me more sheer reading pleasure than Charles Benoit's Relative Danger.
It starts with a rather macho 2-3 pages, and I gritted my teeth, and settled in for a long read. It wasn't nearly long enough. The story quickly moves to the present day, and the hero is a guy not much more heroic than you or me (well, me, anyway). He is, in fact, quite naive, and he won't learn until the end of the book just how much he's been manipulated by others. He's really not in charge of anything in his life, but he has a good time, is grateful for everything he encounters, and has lines like this:
Flying from Casablanca to Cairo,
"This was a non-smoking flight, so children under ten were forbidden to smoke, unless accompanied by an adult."
The book is hard to include in a site dedicated to Asian mysteries, but it's so good we'll make an exception. It more or less ends in Singapore, so we'll put it there.
It's not a farce. There's a naive seriousness about it, but Benoit never lets it drag, and occasionally renders us helpless with passages of great amusement.
It's different from all other books I've read in the past year, and I'd have to reach back to Joseph Heller's Catch 22 to find a novel that combines that degree of seriousness with such deadpan humor.
There's action, sex, and very good descriptions of Casablanca, Cairo, and Singapore, and our hero is a good guy who is so over his head it looks like up to him.
A look at his website suggests that he has not written exclusively around Asian subjects, but that his most recent book concerns Thailand.
--Michael Broschat, Feb 2009