Booklist
A father, separated from his wife and estranged from Charlie, the daughter he doted on, is abruptly informed that Charlie is being held in a Thai prison on a smuggling charge that could carry a death sentence. To Dan, intelligent, well read, and working class, there is no choice but to go rescue her. With Mick, his pub friend, and Phil, his evangelical Christian son, they make a motley trio, earnest and grossly unprepared, and they discover not Charlie in prison but a girl who has stolen her passport. Foolishly, bravely, they secure a guide and head into the jungle to Charlie's last-known location. They do find her, as well as drug dealers, honorable peasants, local sorcerers, and thugs, and they also confront aspects of themselves never before experienced. This is a mixed bag of a book, part thriller, part male- bonding story, and part father's revelation, that ultimately explores how far people will go, and what demons they will face, to save who and what they love. Danise Hoover
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Présentation de l'éditeur
One of the most respected names in genre writing returns with an extraordinarily powerful and moving story of one man’s search for his daughter in the myth-shrouded jungles of Thailand. Danny is approaching fifty, separated, lonely and bitter. He hasn’t spoken to his wife in years; he despises his born-again son and is alienated from Charlie, his twenty-two-year-old daughter. But his alienation is forgotten when he learns that she has been arrested in Thailand for smuggling heroin. He flies out to Bangkok and discovers that the girl being held in Chiang-Mai prison is not Charlie. What follows is a desperate journey into the remote hinterlands of Thailand, where the jungles are ruled by drug gangs and haunted by the spirits. And dogging Danny’s every step is a spectral figure, half glimpsed from the corner of his eye, brushing his sleeve in empty temples . . . SMOKING POPPY is about the love between a father and his daughter; it is an extraordinarily evocative journey into the sights and sounds of Thailand; a chilling descent into the supernatural. Graham Joyce’s books are published around the world; they are elegantly written, full of brilliantly observed characters and always hugely readable.
