Review of The Borrowed by Chan Ho-Kei (2014, Chinese; 2017, Head of Zeus)

Kwan Chun-dok lies dying in a hospital, trapped in a coma. He can communicate only through a EEG headset that allows him to ‘say’ yes, no and to hover between the two. His former mentee Inspector Lok is trying to solve a baffling crime in which the head of a successful family has been killed in his own home. There are only five suspects, all present in the house at the time and Lok assembles them in Kwan’s hospital room, preceding to ask them questions. He also refers questions to Kwan. Through a series of yes/no answers, Kwan solves the crime, his famous deductive mind seeing what the others cannot, despite never visiting the murder site. This is the first of six novellas that make up The Borrowed. Each story is set at a critical time in Hong Kong’s history, with the final tale set in 1967. All the stories feature Kwan, the stories reversing his legendary career. 

While each tale is an intricately plotted police procedural, where the mystery is a difficult puzzle that has to be solved by Kwan (and takes an interesting form – locked-room, prisoner-dilemma, jail break, siege, kidnapping, terrorist conspiracy) they are also astute social and political commentaries about Hong Kong as it passes from British colony to the sphere of Chinese rule. Each story is fascinating in its own right, but collectively they add up to more than the sum of their parts, and there are also multiple social and geographical links between the people and places portrayed. And Kwan is an intriguing character, full of humanity and compassion, but ruthless in pursuing justice. One of the tales felt a little weaker than the others in terms of its resolution, but overall this is an engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking novel with excellent plotting, strong character development, and a good sense of place and historical context. Highly recommended.

Review of The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp (2016, Orbit)

Jack Sparks is the literary equivalent of a shock-jock – a loud, vulgar, offensive sociopath; always scheming and lying, and who lacks care and empathy. What drives him is his ego and its massaging by his fans and followers on every form of social media channel. His latest venture is 'Jack Sparks on the Supernatural' a book in which he sets out to debunk religion, the afterlife and the paranormal. His journey starts with an exorcism in Italy, which he interrupts by laughing at what he sees as an absurd, staged act. What follows is a series of increasingly creepy happenings, including a strange, haunting video with no provenance that appears on his YouTube channel that then disappears. Jack is determined to discover who made the video in order to prove it’s a hoax, using it as a means to gather content for his book as he meets with a combat magician and a group of paranormal investigators. But the more he tries to disprove the supernatural, the more it seems like it might exist, and it all seems to be leading to his inevitable death.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks follows the slow descent of a loutish, egotistical author as he tries to disprove the supernatural in the face of increasing evidence to the contrary. The story is told through the book notes of Jack Sparks, collated and edited by his brother, who also intersperses the text with other evidence, such as letters and audio transcript. Sparks is somewhat of an unreliable narrator who is determined to both shock readers and favourably script his own portrayal. He travels from Italy to Hong Kong to Los Angeles, pursued by the consequences of an exorcism he disrupted and prevented. He creates antagonism and resentment, and in his wake leaves a trail of destruction. By mid-way through it’s clear where the story is heading, though there is still plenty of intrigue, twists and gore. While it’s billed as a dark comedy, the humour fell a little flat for me, in part because it is all rooted in the awfulness of Jack Sparks, a character with no redeeming features who is loathsome throughout. The story is well constructed and told, but I can’t say I enjoyed the characters or story very much.