THE PATH OF THE TAPIR

An environmental thriller that features a large cast of offbeat characters.

Phil Millege works for North Carolina–based firm Progressive Palm Oil International, the “parent company of an agricultural conglomerate.” On behalf of his employers, he’s in Costa Rica investigating a case in which two young tourists—Chloe Summers and her friend Peyton—died in a fiery blaze on the company’s property. Ellis Hayden, an American expatriate with whom the girls were last seen, has gone missing. Millege meets up with Gustavo Segura, a local kayaking guide who has some information about the girls; Liz Zuniga, a woman from the village of Sierpe with a seemingly psychic intuition about Ellis’ location; and a Boruca tracker named Victor Leiba. With their assistance, Millege tries to track down Ellis and find out what really happened to the young women. Over the course of the novel, Jarvis offers prose that’s heavily descriptive and entertainingly evocative, as when he describes Zuniga on her first appearance, noting “The dark bolt of birthmark…a livid purple flame, shallot-shaped, the devil’s one-sided raking curse.” The story follows multiple characters while dotting the narrative with personal journal entries and articles. This effectively showcases the diverse positions of the various players, because although main character Millege is working for a palm oil company, the perspectives of the others clearly show how plantations have been destructive to the land, and this environmental focus gives the thriller a distinctive, timely edge. That said, the cast does become rather crowded after a while, as each chapter seems to add another new name to remember, but it doesn’t do harm to the story.

A worthy and detailed thriller with an ecological slant.