THE DUST ON THE GODOWN FLOOR

A British expat in Thailand working in the metals industry falls victim to a massive fraud and becomes obsessed with tracking down the culprit in Waller’s thriller.

In 1973, Bill Thomas lives in Bangkok, Thailand, works for Worldmetal Inc., and enjoys a good, undemanding life—he is well paid for moderately difficult work and spends much of his free time chasing women and partaking in the services of local sex workers. His placidly complacent existence is upended when a new supplier of tin ore, Panversal Mining, fraudulently ships one of Worldmetal’s client’s ilmenite instead, a much cheaper metal that is difficult to immediately distinguish from tin ore. The brilliantly executed scheme costs Worldmetal half a million dollars, a not insignificant sum of money, even for such a sizable firm. Bill is incensed by the deception and feels compelled to find those responsible, a first flirtation with moral gravity sensitively depicted by the author: “It was the first time in his life that he had been faced with a real challenge. It would mean a lot to his self-esteem if he succeeded.” Bill recruits the help of police Maj. Gen. Pramarn Nitisak, Chief of Suppression of Smuggling Bureau and the uncle of Noo, “a vivacious wide-eyed pixie of a girl,” who provokes in Bill another new emotion—romantic seriousness. The machinations of the crime can be dauntingly complicated for the reader, but they’re never impenetrably convoluted. More importantly, the drama of Bill’s quest to serve justice, a suspenseful pursuit filled with murder and kidnapping, is paired with the equally gripping arc about Bill’s maturation from a playboy to a person of some moral worth. Waller sketches a fascinating tableau of expatriate life in Bangkok, a place filled with beauty and illicit temptations. This is a thoughtfully rendered crime drama, rich in psychological subtlety.

An absorbing story about a criminal conspiracy and the moral evolution of the man who tries to uncover it.