It's 2001 Cambodia. Fresh from war and other monstrosities,
the culture is raw and deadly. Detective Maier is a one time
war reporter turned private eye, and his business brings him
back to Cambodia searching for the missing heir to a Hamburg
coffee fortune. His inquiries take him to the darkest
cornerss of the lands, through horrifying history and shades
of the past. Along the way he encounters the White Spider, a
Nazi war criminal hiding in an ancient Khmer temple deep in
the jungle. Maier finds out that its' not as simple as
retrieving his mark when he becomes embroiled in a far
reaching conspiracy of mass murder, concentration camps and
one mysterious and beautiful woman that he can't seem to
shake.
This is noir at its grittiest, most graphic best. There is a
lush complexity in the narrative that Mr. Vater has brought
us readers. To say this was a historically laden story is to
sell it short. We are transported into the world of
Cambodia, and quite possibly one that most of us will never
see in real life. The magic, the awe, the mystique and
mystery all accompany the depth of characterization. The
brutality, the beauty and mystery of this land are almost
equally weighed within the plot of the story. For me the
White Spider was at times more intriguing than frightening,
but General Tep was truly horrifying in the heinous crimes
he committed. Between those two, I don't believe anything
stood up to the young, murdering and torturous black clad
girls. If you like Raymond Chandler, you're gonna love THE
CAMBODIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD. I have to add in that I really
loved the cover. Its
style and creative throwbacks to specific characters and
themes was brilliant. Give Mr. Vater a read today!
Cambodia, 2001 – a country re-emerges from a half century of
war, genocide, famine and cultural collapse.
Detective Maier travels to Phnom Penh, the Asian kingdom’s
ramshackle capital, to find the missing heir to a Hamburg
coffee empire.
As soon as the private eye and former war reporter arrives
in Cambodia, his search for the young coffee magnate leads
into the darkest corners of the country’s history and back
in time, through the communist revolution to the White
Spider, a Nazi war criminal who hides amongst the detritus
of another nation’s collapse and reigns over an ancient
Khmer temple deep in the jungles of Cambodia.
Maier uncovers a tale of mass murder that reaches from the
Cambodian Killing Fields back to Europe’s concentration
camps. But it is a tale not yet finished and Maier soon
realises that, if he is to prevent more innocent lives from
being destroyed, he will have to write the last terrifying
chapter himself
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