New Book Alert: The Cambodian Book of The Dead by Tom Vater; Strong Attention To Setting Is Highlight of Strange and Confusing Mystery

 

New Book Alert: The Cambodian Book of The Dead by Tom Vater; Strong Attention To Setting Is Highlight of Strange and Confusing Mystery

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Tom Vater certainly has a strong feel for setting. The setting is often the highlight of his mystery novels. His previous work, Kolkata Noir, involved two detectives solving murders over a period of 40 years from 1999-2039. During that time, Vater looks into the income inequalities, racism, religious divides, colonialist history, and environmentalist concerns that affect Kolkata's past, present, and future.

In his latest novel, Vater turns his attention to Cambodia. He writes of a country of great beauty and mystery, but is still suffering from the visible scars of its violent past under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. The dictatorship led to genocide, imprisonment, and exile of many immigrants away from their country never to return.

Vater's book, Cambodian Book of The Dead begins in 1997 when the war between the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian army has been going on for over 20 years. Everyone drinks quietly and says little, afraid to let their guards down and give the Khmers any reason to attack or arrest them.

One of the people who lives there during this tumultuous time is Maier, a German emigre. Maier was a journalist who arrived in Cambodia on assignment but became deeply involved in the local situation, particularly befriending a local man named Horst and beginning a relationship with Horst's sister, Carissa. Unfortunately, Maier's time in Cambodia ends in explosions aiming for the journalist. Khmer Rouge doesn't like foreigners or journalists and since Maier fits both criteria, he knows that he's on their hit list. Time to go.

Years later, Maier settled in Hamburg as a private detective. He has achieved a modicum of success and some semblance of peace as long as he doesn't think about those days in Cambodia. Unfortunately, those days are coming back when a wealthy woman, Mrs. Muller-Overbeck hires Maier to look for her wayward son, Rolf. Guess what country he was last seen in? Of course, where else?

So off Maier goes to revisit Cambodia, a country who has not recovered from the tyranny of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and is prone to violence, paranoid suspicion, and human trafficking.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the book is how Cambodia is portrayed. It is a beautiful country with lush greenery and ancient temples but it is clearly forever marked by its recent past of the last 45 years. Though Pol Pot is long gone, the influence of him and the Khmer Rouge still remains. Khmers still stalk the streets of Phnom Penh still beholden to a long gone cause and ready to commit violence to prove that their cause was just. Many still carry the old prejudices and mistrust that they once held as Maier realizes when he tries to talk to Khmers and find them no more receptive than they were years ago when they were the top army.

Even though the dictator is long gone, Cambodia's position has not improved. It is considered one of the poorest countries in the world. The book reveals that corruption is rampant, and the drug trade and human trafficking are ever present.

There are two passages that explore the current situation depicted in Vater's writing and it is dour. One is at a club where Maier tried to ascertain information in the typical hard-boiled detective manner. The club is filled with frequent drug addiction and a general hopelessness probably from years of fighting that has now become exhaustion and despair. The only ones who seem to be having a good time are the crime lords, those who are profiting off of other's misery and take a sadistic delight out of it.

One of the most haunting passages occurs when Maier visits the remains of a factory. Ancient superstitious fear is revealed as Maier catches images of what could be a ghost. In a nighttime setting where abuse and violence occurred, supernatural hauntings are not out of the realm of possibility. Then Maier discovered what goes on inside the factory is a horror of the human variety.

The setting of The Cambodian Book of The Dead is so intricate describing its history and current struggles that plot concerns can be almost forgiven. Almost.

The resolution is hard to follow and it's sometimes difficult what role they play in the overall mystery. Some characters who are likely suspects serve as obvious red herrings and some plot points are irritatingly left dangling. It seems that Vater was more interested in capturing Cambodia rather than a mystery set in it. He might have done just as well as leaving the mystery out of it and wrote a historical fiction about life in Cambodia told from an expatriate before and after the Khmer Rouge.

The Cambodian Book of The Dead's setting is memorable. It's too bad the mystery doesn't live up to it and is forgettable.