Lightning on the Sun - Softcover

Bingham, Robert

3.7

227 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841951412 ISBN 13: 9781841951416

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2001

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Ashers is in trouble. He's stuck out in Phnom Penh, the work has dried up, and he's at the end of his spiritual and financial tether. But top-grade heroin is wonderfully cheap in this lawless part of the world.So with funds borrowed from the loan-sharking, massage parlour owner Mr Hawk and with the aid of journalist and 'citizen' Reese as an unwitting mule, Asher plans to move some weight to New York, where demand will happily exceed supply.His partner in this scam is Julie, an ex-lover, still living in New York, but when Julie decides to improvise, the carefully worked-out plans swiftly and dangerously unravel.Lightning on the Sun is a brilliant debut novel that combines the fast-paced suspense of a thriller with the moral resonance and exotic setting of one of Graham Greene's classic works.

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Review:

"Lightning on the Sun is a nifty thriller with something to say about the secret symbiotic history of America and Cambodia." (The Sunday Herald)

"It is blightingly entertaining. Entertaining partly because it has the swoop and speed of a thriller, blighting because it s subjects are harshly unmythical people who toss away lives: despots, in this case mostly Cambodian, and the staving masses scrambling on each other's backs to survive." (The Observer)

"a dark, tight thriller that looks at the flaws and fallibility of human nature. It is a book about chaos and failure... This is a stunning legacy from a great lost voice." (Dazed and Confused)

From the Back Cover:

Asher is in trouble. He's washed up in Phnom Penh, the UNESCO monument preservation work has dried up, and he's at the end of his spiritual and financial ropes. But highest-quality heroin is wonderfully cheap in this dangerous and corrupt part of the world.

So with funds borrowed from the loan-sharking massage parlour owner Mr. Hawk and the aid of a journalist and 'citizen' Reese as an unwitting mule, he plans to move some weight to New York, where supply will happily meet demand.

His partner in this plan is Julie, his once and future love, a beautiful Harvard-educated dabbler in trendy nihilism and fashionable marginalisation, currently working behind the bar at Stopless, a downtown strip club. It's all been carefully worked out, but when Julie decides to improvise, the plans swiftly and dangerously unravel in ways that will put the lives of these three complexly flawed young Americans in mortal danger.

Robert Bingham's Lightning on the Sun is a beautifully plotted and written novel with the fast-paced suspense of a thriller and the moral resonance and exotic setting of one of Graham Greene's classic works. The novel's sense of place, whether steamy Phnom Penh, or bustling New York or a leafy New England prep school, is unerring, as is its sense of post-modern moral compromise and the disillusioning ways of the world. It offers an exhilarating read; the literary legacy of one of his generation's most gifted writers.

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