BACH UNDERWATER

In Huang’s thriller, an American reporter on the financial beat in Southeast Asia uncovers a sinister conspiracy.

Jasmine Goo, a financial journalist with a Wall Street media company, jumps a few rungs up the professional ladder when she’s suddenly offered a big promotion to bureau chief of Southeast Asia. Her predecessor, Jim Westport, died in an accident, likely the result of an “extreme sex game,” and she’s recruited to quickly fill the spot. Jasmine moves to the region, settling in a teeming city she calls Crow Town (the actual city and country Jasmine moves to are not identified). She discovers a grand piano in her new home and decides to renew the childhood lessons she abandoned, beginning to study with Joseph Liem, an imperious “dictator” blessed with impressive talent who harbors a deep ardor for Bach. The author quirkily but affectingly captures Joseph’s enthusiasm in this musically astute novel: “Remember, Bach lives under the water. You must report his thoughts merely by showing the audience the ripples on the surface so that we can trace the confluence of the ever-moving waves.” Jasmine comes to suspect that Jim’s death might not have been an accident, believing that he may have been murdered by thieves out to purloin a considerable tranche of “prehistoric gold” buried under an old temple. Huang writes with great intelligence and psychological depth—Jasmine is a memorable hero, as smart and brave as she is vulnerable and emotionally scarred by recent romantic failure and distant family tragedy. The author’s inclusion of some supernatural content feels gratuitous and silly, which detracts from the novel’s gravity, and at times the plot digresses so much and moves at such a leisurely amble that the narrative seems lost. However, this is overall a powerful work of fiction, culturally rich and dramatically gripping.

A captivating blend of crime drama and cultural commentary.