Darien Dogs by Henry Shukman (Jonathan Cape, £12.99).
THE dustjacket makes grand claims... the portrayal of washed-up Westerners adrift in the developing world has "echoes of Graham Greene - but Shukman's writing has an imaginative depth, an erotic, muscular charge and a dark, compulsive energy all its own".
A bold statement and, alas, one that isn't justified.
Protagonist Jim Rogers has made a mess of his life, and sees in a dubious Panamanian deal the chance to salvage it.
In a sense this is a story about redemption, but without Greene's majestically spiritual conception of the world it lacks grandeur.
Alex Sarll
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