CoffeeAndThorn reviewed Man with the golden mind by Tom Vater (A Detective Maier novel)
Review of 'Man with the golden mind' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Another gripping, politically aware thriller from this author who has pleased me several times before. This time his story is set largely in Laos, a country still nursing the wounds from an unpublicized US massacre of the civilian population by a bombing campaign from the fifities to the seventies, an adjunct to the Vietnam War. (No folks, that’s not fiction, that’s history).
Memories are long. The war finished but the aftermath hasn’t gone away. Betrayals aren’t forgotten. The old airbase with its cache of secrets is mouldering in the jungle. The relatives of those who lost their lives haven’t forgiven. The country is still devastated, economically, culturally, morally. And there are still soldiers in the jungle.
Winding through this story are characters with a connection to that time, on one side or another. And Maier – a complicated, not particularly heroic hero – muddling more than marching through the …
Another gripping, politically aware thriller from this author who has pleased me several times before. This time his story is set largely in Laos, a country still nursing the wounds from an unpublicized US massacre of the civilian population by a bombing campaign from the fifities to the seventies, an adjunct to the Vietnam War. (No folks, that’s not fiction, that’s history).
Memories are long. The war finished but the aftermath hasn’t gone away. Betrayals aren’t forgotten. The old airbase with its cache of secrets is mouldering in the jungle. The relatives of those who lost their lives haven’t forgiven. The country is still devastated, economically, culturally, morally. And there are still soldiers in the jungle.
Winding through this story are characters with a connection to that time, on one side or another. And Maier – a complicated, not particularly heroic hero – muddling more than marching through the complicated spiderweb of a plot he can't quite grasp. What’s he really looking for? His client’s father whose murder he has been paid to investigate? Gold? A chance for the big time? His client? A new girlfriend? An old one? Himself?
Well written, intelligent fiction, with a fascinating historical background, atmospheric scenery and sophistacted plotting. What’s not to like?