Ben, the protagonist of The Leper's Bell, Paul Micou's seventh novel, finds himself plunged into increasing moral and emotional turmoil following his sacking from his smart lawyers job. Ben initially doesn't take the news that he is surplus to requirements very well. He tells a "pure lie" to his wife about it--"something he knew he would find difficult to live with"--before rationalising the whole thing and seeing that it in fact provides him with an opportunity to devote more time to his neglected family. He is then delighted when posted overseas to work on a most important construction project and revels in showing his son the exotic new world in which they live. Micou skilfully evokes the strangeness of the dessert terrain as well as the ease with which Ben slips into a series of political and personal compromises that ultimately threaten his family and his safety. The book opens with a quote from Graham Greene's The Quiet American and has been compared not only to Greene but also to William Boyd in it's bleakly comic treatment of human foibles. Quite a lot to live up to. But with it's stylish mixture of murky politics, sinister location and personal crises, Micou just about pulls it off. --Nick Wroe
