In
the early 1990s, at the end of the devastating civil war UN peacekeeping
forces try to keep the lid on the violence. Gunfire can still
be heard nightly in Phnom Penh, where Vietnamese prostitutes try
to hook UN peacekeepers from the balcony of the Lido Bar.
Calvino
traces leads on a missing farang from Bangkok to war-torn
Cambodia, through the Russian market, hospitals, nightclubs, news
briefings, and UNTAC Headquarters. Calvino’s buddy, Colonel Pratt,
knows something that Calvino does not: the missing man is connected
with the jewels stolen from the Saudi royal family. Calvino quickly
finds out that he is not the only one looking for the missing
farang.
Read
excerpt
Praise
“Much
more than a thriller, Zero hours in Phnom Penh is a fresco
of Cambodia and its people, their despair, their hopes, their
fears, their lives. And that's what makes this book a single work,
much deeper than what can be expected to beginning reading.”
—Unwalkers
“The
story is fast-paced and entertaining. Even outside of his Bangkok
comfort zone, Moore shows he is one of the best chroniclers
of the expat diaspora.”
—The Daily Yomiuri
“Zero
Hour in Phnom Penh is political, courageous and perhaps [Moore’s]
most important work. Moore is a brilliant storyteller and a masterful
character inventor.”
—CrimiCouch.de
“Zero
Hour in Phnom Penh is a brilliant detective story that portrays—with
no illusion—Cambodia’s adventurous transition from
genocide and civil war to a free-market economy and democratic
normality. Zero Hour in Phnom Penh is a rare stroke of luck
and a work of art, from which one can always draw more stories
and levels of meaning. . . . an all too human, timeless, historical
and philosophical novel.”
—Deutsche Well Buchtipp, Bonn
“A
thriller in which the importance of the single crime shrinks visibly
at the sight of mass murder and grand corruption.”
—Thomas Klingenmaier, Stuttgarter Zeitung
“It
was ten years ago in Cambodia, but this great novel sits well
after Kandahar, Luanda, Kabul, Baghdad and other places where
the brutality of war destroys the souls of humanity.”
—KulturNews, Hamburg
“[In
Zero Hour in Phnom Penh] one experiences an impressive novel and
discovers lives in a country—keyword ‘Pol Pot—that
has a long history of genocide behind it. A novel of sad intelligence
and intelligent sadness”
—Thomas Widmer, Facts Zürich
“Moore
is an accurate storyteller and a sensitive observer. He bares
the colonial attitude of the foreigners and soberly describes
the survival strategies of the young women—imparting a
great amount of information and a valuable insight.”
—Marianne de Mestral, P.S. Magazin, Zürich
“The
novel is more than a crime fiction. It is a believable attempt
to describe a society at the crossroad. Moore’s portrayal
of the omnipresent prostitution in Cambodia goes under the skin.
Nothing is glossed over.”
—Christian Ruf, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten
“Zero
Hour in Phnom Penh is a bursting, high adventure . . . extremely
gripping . . . a morality portrait with no illusion.”
—Ulrich Noller, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
“A
well written, exciting, but not simplistic thriller. The description
of Cambodia at the end of the Pol Pot terror regime (approximately
1993) is convincing. High tension amidst violent backdrop. Recommended.”
—Ute Ulrike Fauth, EKZ Buchbesprechungen Reutlingen
“Moore’s
crime fiction is a multi-layered and disillusioning picture
of the Cambodian society and the UNTAC soldiers: the reality
behind the headlines.”
—Inge Wünnenberg, General-Anzeiger, Bonn
“Like
other Calvino novels, Zero Hour in Phnom Penh captures the tropical
sultriness that often sucks away the breaths of West Germans in
Southeast Asia. Heat, noise and stench almost emanate from the
book.. Moore heats up the climate even further with his portrayals
of raw power, cheap sex, wretchedness from drugs and human contempt.
It can be stomach-turning for the delicate of the hearts.”
—Sönke Boldt, Badische Neueste Nachrichten Karlsruhe
“Moore
writes to entertain, and that he does.”
—Bangkok Post
Foreign
Edition
China
Youth Press
(Chinese) |
Polar
Presse
(French) |
|
| |
|
|
Kodansha
Ltd.
(Japanese) |
Ediciones
Paidos Iberica S.A.
(Spanish) |
Matichon
(Thai) |
