The spiel on the back of this book sells the story as a thriller with a moral dilemma. Which it is. But it’s more than that. This is an existential, who am I, who are you, why are we here, what’s right, what’s wrong kind of book.
Somehow, it reminds me of the writings of Carlos Castaneda and others of the hippie-druggie spiritual-search variety.
The story takes place just before the dot com crash and starts with the launch of yet another mindblowing Internet idea that doesn’t actually make or sell anything, yet promises to produce untold riches for its creators. The executives of this Canadian Internet company, their translator (the narrator) and a raft of politicians and bureaucrats are in Brazil for a trade mission and afterwards set out on a pleasure ride up the Amazon. And that’s where all hell breaks loose.
As a reader, you’re asked to put up with a lot of improbabilities in this book — more than seem necessary and I wonder if it’s the writer being sloppy or whether he feared the story was too plain and has ended up overdoing it. It certainly is a wild and woolly tale.
But what bugs me most is that Andrew Pyper has chosen to tell the story as a woman — which he really isn’t able to carry off. There was no doubt in my mind when I started reading that the narrator was a man and it came as a shock that I was supposed to believe these were the thoughts of a woman. Pyper just isn’t able to put himself in a woman’s place and speak with a woman’s voice. It detracts from the story and creates a jarring that takes your mind off the narrative. But it’s still a good read, exciting and intellectually stimulating.