While my list of books-to-read continues to stack up with spectacular recommendations by @naquoya and other great Steemians, I have had trouble getting over the Nick Harkaway bug. The very talented British author continues to breathe life into characters and settings alike and thus, the end result is that I am truly captivated every time I open up one of his books.
Tigerman was no exception. Set on the fictional island of Mancreu, Harkaway instills immediate intrigue (almost had me some alliteration there) by placing a countdown clock on this tropical setting. You see, the island has been off gassing some pseudo-radioactive clouds (due to prior pollution) that have been deemed far too dangerous. Consequently, the international community has agreed to abandon and nuke the holy hell out of the island as a cure-all. However, before that takes place, there is a wonderful gray area off the coast of Mancreu that is exploited by many nations who have ships conducting questionable interrogations, detainments, and medical experiments.
Amidst it all, our main character, Sergeant Lester Ferris, is the assigned British “brevet-consul”. The good-guy sergeant splits his time between navigating the aforementioned legally gray minefield while growing a friendship (that is quickly becoming paternal in nature) with a local kid prodigy. Shortly into the book, disaster strikes (no spoilers!!) and Sgt. Ferris finds himself responding (to his own amazement) by assuming an almost comic-book identity as the “Tigerman”.
And while my set up for the book may strike you as a bit outlandish, allow me to reassure you that the story is kept realistic with Harkaway grounding it in emotion and impactful dialogue, instead of overburdening it with campy costumes and superpowers. On the contrary, this book had several passages that stirred a tangible sense of real-world familiarity in me. Here are three of my favorite passages I highlighted while reading through this excellent novel:
With reference to enduring untimely deaths of those who we hold dear:
Sorrow was something you did best if you did it while other things were happening, or it could freeze you in place.
Sure, life has rhythm and for those that are lucky, even meaning, but far more often chaos seems to prevail. I thought Harkaway articulated this idea perfectly here:
”...life has no understanding of proper structure,” the boy said, “which is why news stories are always made of little lies.”
And finally for those of us that remember trying to muster up (or drinking up) our courage to approach that prom date or that friend who could have been a bit more, but then regrettably, he or she would just become “the one that got away":
Even if the mood between them was still strained. And in that connection: perhaps that was why the mood was strained. He had had that experience with a girl once, had waited and waited for the right moment to ask her out and it had never come, and their friendship—which they had both vowed they wanted to preserve above all else—had decayed and faded away, because the central plank of it was that question. There came a time with any unconsummated desire of whatever sort when you simply had to speak up or let it go.
I thought on each of these quotes for several moments after reading them. Quite often, the existence of gems like these within the story determines if I really loved a book or not. Needless to say, I did indeed thoroughly enjoy Tigerman. Paling only in comparison to his magnum opus, The Gone-Away World, I give Nick Harkaway’s 2014 novel, a very strong 4.5 out of 5 stars. Great stuff!
Until next time, keep on steem’n folks!