by Zephaniah Sole
SYNOPSIS
Brought to you by a serving FBI agent! A Crime In The Land of 7,000 Islands is a powerhouse crime book like The Silence of the Lambs fused with anime and Grimm’s fairy tales. This incendiary novel, beautifully-written and at times horrifying, tells of FBI Special Agent Ikigai Johnson, who pledges to bring justice to children abused by a monstrous American in the Philippines. Amidst a police procedural of expert accuracy, she recounts her tale to her Eleven-year-old daughter through fantastical allegory. Her story exposes the damage of generational trauma and the exploitation that arises from inequality. It explores the nuances of criminal justice and reminds us of the battles between our courage and our willingness to let fear take hold. It is a call to act against evil.
REVIEW
I love it when you find a hidden gem and for me ‘A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands’ is a book that should be getting so much more attention.
This book is dark, and it doesn’t ease you in gradually. The thing that’s so ingenious about it is that the way it’s written is deceiving. Using folk tales and a childlike perspective detracts from just how terrible the reality of what was happening in the story really is. If you don’t pay attention you could easily miss the full extent of the crimes taking place because they are cleverly hidden as undertones in the unusual style of narrative.
Following Ikagai Johnson we learn about her past and the events that lead to her becoming an FBI agent as she recounts her story to her daughter but the journey that we are taken on is vast and complex and sometimes brutal. Told through different perspectives, different timeframes and different locations - sometimes swept away into a mythical world, and sometimes brought back to reality with a sobering crash.
The only thing I was uncertain about was if there was another layer to the story that I was just completely unaware of because I have no knowledge of anime. It could just be that the anime elements contributed towards the general feeling and structure of the narrative but that’s not something I can really comment on. Either way I was blown away by this book, it was absolutely captivating. I was so completely absorbed into the story and I really wasn’t expecting it.
Unlike anything I’ve ever read before and a serious contender for my book of the year!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zephaniah Sole is a Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Author Fellow as well as an alum of VONA and Tin House. His fiction has appeared in Epiphany, Gargoyle Magazine, Collateral Journal, and Vestal Review, among other publications. A graduate of New York University, he's been a filmmaker, a public school teacher, and is an FBI agent. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Thanks to Random Things Tours - @RandomTTours, Zephaniah Sole @ZephaniahSole and Black Spring Press - @Eyewearbooks for the opportunity to read and review.
Publisher: Black Spring Press Ltd Genre: Thriller / Folklore
ISBN: 978-1913606480
Pages: 307pp
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