Comment

Jan 08, 2017
Will Keller was once a great war photographer, but by 2003 he's working at a nondescript paper in Phnom Penh to support his drug habit. He's also pretty good at finding people lost in Cambodia's criminal underworld, which is how he gets involved in the search for a young Japanese-American woman. Clues in her diary -- which depicts a descent into darkness -- suggest that her disappearance isn't an accident. With an eye for seedy detail and an impressive array of corrupt politicos, alcoholic ex-pats, and other ne'er-do-wells, this vivid debut is memorable: "the plotting is wily and entertaining, the take on Cambodia, trenchant and disturbing" (Kirkus Reviews).