海角大神

If your taste in fiction runs to psychological thrillers with elaborate prose and exotic locations, 鈥淭he Glass Kingdom鈥� is worth a read.

Sarah Mullins, a California transplant to New York City, sets up an apprenticeship with a famous New York novelist whom she admires. Sarah, however, turns out to be a confidence woman of sorts, who begins this relationship to forge a cache of letters purportedly written by the novelist; she plans to sell them to a collector in Hong Kong for $200,000.

But because the collector refuses to come to New York, Sarah must fly to Hong Kong to collect the money. After leaving Hong Kong, she lands in Bangkok for 鈥渕uddled and emotional reasons.鈥� There she settles into a once elegant but now decaying four-tower apartment complex named the Kingdom.聽

At the complex鈥檚 pool she meets the mysterious Mali, a British-educated financial assistant. Mali invites Sarah to a 鈥済irls鈥� night out鈥� at a friend鈥檚 apartment in the Kingdom. Here she introduces Sarah to Ximena, a Chilean chef at a French restaurant and Natalie, a hotel manager. The ladies are aware that Sarah is maintaining some sort of fa莽ade but can鈥檛 quite figure her out.

Unlike Dostoevsky鈥檚 Raskolnikov, the protagonist in 鈥淐rime and Punishment,鈥� Sarah is not wracked with guilt despite having committed the crime of forgery and theft. If anything, she comes across as plagued with ennui. Her listlessness is puzzling, given that she made such elaborate plans to get the money in the first place. She鈥檚 like the dog that chases cars but doesn鈥檛 know what to do when it catches one. Her character isn鈥檛 particularly appealing, and one wishes that she would be more decisive 鈥� even if it鈥檚 just committing to something other than just being there. I mean, if you had $200,000 in cash and were living in Southeast Asia, wouldn鈥檛 you at least want to travel, buy fancy clothes, and live it up?

The novel鈥檚 other characters also have ill-defined backgrounds. Their physical descriptions are somewhat satisfying, but one yearns to know their backstories and add flesh to the bare bones of their existence. Their amorality, however, is never in doubt, including Natalie鈥檚 adulterous husband, Roland, who visits local bars looking for pretty girls; Mali鈥檚 Japanese lover, Ryo, whose background is never defined; Goi, the scheming apartment-block maid who has a passkey to different units and is not above making a fast buck; and Pop, the Kingdom鈥檚 version of a resident handyman, whose innocent veneer falls apart in an unanticipated twist to the narrative鈥檚 final scene.聽

What really shines is Osborne鈥檚 prose in observation and atmosphere: 鈥淭hat night [Sarah] slept badly. From out in the dark, at around three in the morning, there was what sounded like a gunshot, which echoed with an ominous arrogance and then, a moment later, seemed impossible. A gunshot to kill a dog, or a man playing with a gun in his garden; but it could not be either. She lay awake sweating, her pulse rising to the back of her eyes. No siren came to investigate the shot; there was only the wind howling around her half-decayed windows. Unable to go back to sleep, she turned on the lights and went to the second bedroom, where she kept the suitcase filled with cash. She took it out of the closet, laid it flat, and opened it, a ritual of self-reassurance she had been meaning to perform for a while now.鈥�

Osborne, a British novelist who currently lives in Bangkok, paints a vivid picture of the city and its inhabitants. Referred to by some as a modern Graham Greene, Osborne explores the ambivalent natures of his characters against the backdrop of one of the world鈥檚 exotic megacities.聽

You can almost feel the oppressive heat when the air conditioning in the Kingdom goes out. You can hear the rain as it hits the glass roof of the Kingdom and see the changing evening sky. His verbal paintbrush does more for the city of Bangkok than it does for his characters. But if you鈥檙e looking for an escape from the ordinary, 鈥淭he Glass Kingdom鈥� fits the bill.