Murder, a moonless night, the jungle crowding close . . .
The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations and jungle, decay, corruption and the backwash of empire, this gripping nuanced novel has a pitch-perfect ear for the comedy and a sharp eye for the tragedy of a world at the end of its tether.
Sam Obeysekere - "obey" by name and by nature - is a Ceylonese lawyer, a prefect product of empire. His family once had wealth and influence but starts to crack open as political change comes to the island, and Sam's glamorous father dies leaving gambling debts.
But the Obeysekeres' troubles reach back into the past, when a baby was found dead in his cot. And at the heart of the novel is the Hamilton Case, a murder scandal that shakes the upper echelons of island society. Sam's involvement in it makes his name but sets his life on course for disappointment.
Full of irresistible characters - Sam himself, a triumph of ambivalence, resentment and pathos; his beautiful, unstable sister; his flamboyant mother Maud - this is a sinuous, constantly surprising tale. It paints a haunting picture of the end of an era, suffused with "the unbearable thought that everything might have been different . . ."
