Christopher G. Moore

This book contains a group of essays written by novelists who see themselves as carrying on the work of George Orwell. As the editor Christopher Moore says in his foreword “We are novelists but we also share a vision that writers should use their passion, talents and experience to address political issues—issues that, it turns out, differ little from those of Orwell’s day. In plain words we draw on some of the great Orwellian themes of our time: the economic collapse in America and Europe, a trend for capitalism and totalitarian elites to find common ground, anti-rational/anti-science populists who use religion to push back the Enlightenment, the growing inequality among citizens of all countries and the rise of new technological means of control, surveillance and destruction as Ministries of Truth roam the Internet on behalf of many governments in a way that Orwell could never have foreseen.”
Some of the essays are more successful than others. I thought some of the best were: Joe—2012 by Mike Lawson (envisioning how J. Edgar Hoover would have used current technology), The Boulevard of Dreams and Riches by John Lantigua (about Southern Boulevard in Palm Beach that starts with Donald Trump’s 120 room mansion and ends with Belle Glade, a poor black neighbourhood), Jai Yen by Colin Cotterill (about trying to get permission to start a school for Burmese refugee children in Thailand) and Transformation by Barbara Nadel (about transgendered people in Turkey). I don’t think any of these essays will be as enduring as Orwell’s 1984 or Animal Farm but they do show the state of the world in 2012. Orwell probably would have recognized many of the situations. Not all of the essays are doom and gloom. Moore’s own essay, Killing Fields Justice: A Witness to History, shows how the architects of the Khmer Rouge genocide are finally brought to justice in Cambodia.
While reading this book I was reminded of another book I read recently, Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs. She analyzed a number of social issues that were indicative of society losing touch with our fundamental rights and duties. I think George Orwell would have found Jane Jacobs to be a kindred spirit. Since they are now both deceased we will have to count on writers such as the ones who wrote these essays to remind us of our need to question and analyze what our leaders tell us.… (more)

On his site the author lists ASIA HAND as #2 in a series of twelve books featuring private investigator, one time New York lawyer, Vince Calvino. Mainly set in Bangkok, the settings for the novels also venture into Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma. ASIA HAND is set in Bangkok but revolves around documentary footage shot by an American cameraman on the Thai/Burma border which purports to show Burmese aggression.

The cameraman is Calvino's neighbour and when he is found dead in Lumpini Park Lake, Vince attempts to find out how he died. At first he is puzzled why Hutton had not told him about the film footage, and then he begins to wonder the action was genuine or staged.

Another film, soft-porn really, Lucky Charms, is being shot in Bangkok and Calvino learns that his ex-wife is coming over from New York to play a role, and then that his lover also has a part. Finally his teenage daughter is also offered a part. Calvino learns that the team producing the film have made several others in the past few years, set in Asian political hotspots, beginning in Saigon many years before, and he begins to suspect an underlying agenda that has nothing to do with the films being made.

Someone is out to stop Calvino and Thai policeman Colonel Pratt from unearthing the truth behind both Hutton's murder and the documentary footage. After other attempts to stop him fail, Calvino realises that his daughter is their _target.

ASIA HAND is gritty and noir, in fact just a little too so for me. I suspect it will appeal to male readers more than it did to me. On the other hand I did feel I was getting some genuine insights into Thai culture. I just didn't enjoy it.

I read ASIA HAND as part of the 2012 Global Reading Challenge.

Read an excerpt of ASIA HAND.
In 2011 ASIA HAND won the Shamus Award for Best Original paperback.In fact the series has been winning awards since 2004.
Check the official Vince Calvino site.

Christopher G. Moore is a Canadian writer who once taught law at the University of British Columbia. After his first book His Lordship’s Arsenal was published in New York to a critical acclaim in 1985, Moore became a full-time writer and has so far written 23 novels, a non-fiction and one collection of inter-locked short stories. (I met Christopher a couple of years back at Left Coast crime in Hawaii.) more

Besides his own blog, Christopher is also part of the International Crime Authors Reality Check Team.… (more)

Set mostly in Phnom Penh, ZERO HOUR IN PHNOM PENH is based in the early 1990's, at the end of the civil war that tore Cambodia apart, in the wake of the appalling Khmer Rouge regime. UN peacekeeping forces are on the streets, gunfire is regularly heard, and PI Vincent Calvino is looking for an American man - a farang - who has friends in Thailand keen to get in touch with him.

With a distinctly noir sensibility, ZERO HOUR takes Calvino from where he is based in Thailand into the dangerous, unpredictable, unstable and decidedly seedy world of underground Phnom Penh. It's a risky business as it is obvious from the people this man is involved with, that there has to be something very dodgy going on. Even Calvino's friend Thai policeman Colonel Pratt seems to know a lot more about the missing man's involvements than he is letting on.

For a book with such a noir sensibility, there are some unexpected elements, not least of all a lot of descriptive and discursive story-lines that do mean it seems to take an age for any actual action to take place. Which isn't a bad thing at all if you're looking for noir with more of a cultural immersion effect. I will confess that it took me quite a while to get into the tone of the book - initially I found the wandering down various cul-de-sacs somewhat disconcerting, mostly because I struggled to see where everything could possibly be heading. That wasn't helped by some of the little offerings of sheer brilliance - the death of one particularly colourful character on the concrete steps in the stand at the racetrack was described with such skill that you could see him, his chocolate brownie, and the milling crowd with absolutely no effort whatsoever. I wanted more of that - more of the story moving forward. And once that started to happen, it has to be said a fair way into the book, I was completely and absolutely hooked.

It is a very dark story, and Calvino is a classic lone-wolf, cynical, side of the mouth talking, slightly Energiser Bunny sort of survivor that comes to that stereotype in a place, and an environment that's absolutely fascinating. There's no holds barred in the way that Phnom Penh is described, the way that the lawless society operates and the stark and very in-your-face descriptions of the differences between the UN peacekeepers and locals. There are a lot of people in this place living life on the edge, sometimes taking advantage, mostly being taken advantage of. It's not a pretty place, but whilst there are some glimpses of people trying to move forward, there are also some telling and very pointed examples of a collective ignoring, or lack of awareness of the reality of the present - and the immediate past. I was particularly struck by the references to an incident with a missing Australian traveller - a real-life incident I remember very well.

ZERO HOUR is not all noir, not all description, not all dire and not all dark though. There are glimpses of kindness, of care and of generosity. There's touches of humour, there's character development and there's a central lone-wolf character who might not exactly wisecrack his way through the grime, but he certainly is a dab hand at a bit of observational wryness. Despite the slow start to ZERO HOUR IN PHNOM PENH I found this book increasingly compelling as I went through. Definitely a series that I need to catch up with.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/zero-hour-phnom-penh-christopher-g-moore… (more)