Lou Jacobs's Reviews > Toxic Spirits

Toxic Spirits by Inderjeet Mani

Retired intelligence officer, Benton, attempts to find peace as an ex-pat in Thailand after his beloved wife dies. He soon realizes that finding even a modicum of peace is far from possible. Confronted in an ex-pat bar he is beguiled by the band singer, Siri. After becoming immediately infatuated with her exotic beauty and talent .. she mysteriously disappears. He discovers she has been speaking out about the serious side-effects of drug trials being foisted on members of her hill-tribe, the Palin. Nothing can stop his probing and personal investigation ... which implicates Pierre, a seriously disturbed Indo-Cambodian doctor, who heads the "Foundation" behind the trials.
Mani's evocation of the exotic world of Thailand is reminiscent of the best novels of John Burdett (Bangkok 8 & Bangkok Tattoo). His prose is densely atmospheric and immerses the reader into the unsettling world of Thailand ... filled with a foreboding sense of dread .. and populated by beautiful women, prostitutes, corrupt cops and military. Mani with masterful prose fleshes out multiple characters in a cinematic fashion.
The only weak point of this Debut Novel is the denouement ... which petered out rather than unwinding to a flourishing finish. I did not realize that this novel was the first in a contemplated trilogy ... perhaps a 5 Star rating would've resulted. Thanks to NetGalley and Calumet Editions for supplying an Uncorrected Proof in exchange for an honest review.
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The story of a peaceful retirement run amok, this novel recounts the story of Benton Sims, former intelligence officer and grieving widower, who becomes embroiled in a circle of people in Thailand who are carrying out illegal drug trials. The narrative moves both back and forth in time, and between the lives of Ben, his Virginia neighbors, and Pierre, who is the drug trial kingpin. The author's background as professor and scientist is obvious from the extensive (and for this reader excessive) elaborations of genetics and botany. The description of a skeletal museum of wartime victims is ghoulish, as is the portrayal of the deformities and deaths that result from the medical trials. The distinction between reality and hallucination is often very fuzzy, and serves to demonstrate the confusion and moral dilemmas faced by the main character.

This was a VERY slow read for me. Characters are mainly unlikable, the story line plodding along towards an unsatisfying ending. And perhaps I'm being a prude here, but a "relationship" between a upper middle aged man and a teenage girl didn't give cause to like the protagonist much.

This book is written in the best style I have read in a while. The writing is clear and beautiful. The story is muddled. The main character, an expat, gets involved in an illegal medical trial that uses a local hill tribe for their residual genes. He has many adventures and experiences before the confusing ending. I wish I could have gotten more out of the story.

Compelling

Benton Sims is a grieving widower who become an expat in Thailand to escape his past. However, as often happens, he finds himself drawn in to the plight of the Palin tribe and unethical cancer experiments. Using his past skills in government security, he becomes involved in and a member of those same experiments that have had horrible consequences on the participants.

Along the way, Bento, as he is called, has many musings on literature, music, social life and connections with other expats. While this novel is brilliantly written, I found sex with very young people to be not of my taste and unnecessary in this context.

The book is beautifully written with fantastic imagery. Mani has an intelligent writing style that pulls the reader into living the novel rather than just reading it. The story is compelling in that one could see this very thing happening with the big pharma companies so the reader wants to know how Bento uses his skill to divert the catastrophic outcomes. Loss of friends, heartache and then new love give a huge breadth of emotions for the reader to experience as the novel progresses.

Definitely worth the time to explore. It leaves many questions to ponder long after the novel is closed.

There is some fine writing here, as well as a ton of cultural insights. Unfortunately, there is NOT a novel here.

A novel requires either a narrative or characters that engage you and draw you in, preferably both, but sadly neither is found here. What narrative there is feels incoherent and annoying to try to follow, and the characters are vague and impossible to care about. That's a shame, too, because the setting is interesting and well-drawn, and some of the writing is wonderful.

I can't recommend it.