Darien Dogs

Description

'Any fictional, pissed Englishman in the tropics has to compete with the creations of Greene and Somerset Maugham. Surprisingly, impressively, Shukman stands up these comparisons, possessing a voice and a style that are entirely his own' - Guardian Jim Rogers once had everything- a successful career, the love of a beautiful woman, a Manhattan penthouse and more money than he knew what to do with. Now it had all gone wrong and he was in a seedy hotel in Panama realising that the prostitute he'd just been with had stolen his wallet. Though it wasn't the money he was worried about but a sheet of folded paper, which he'd just been given by the mysterious Albert Jones- a piece of paper that might have saved his life. The search for the girl and the stolen document lead the two men deep into the Darien archipelago - a primitive, treacherous idyll that seems like Paradise but may in fact be Hell. The short novel, Darien Dogs, and the four stories that accompany it, mark the fictional debut of an assured and thrillingly gifted writer.

Henry Shukman has worked as a trombonist, a trawlerman and a travel writer. He is also a prize-winning poet. His first poetry collection, In Doctor No's Garden, won the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His first novel, Sandstorm, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2005 and won the Authors Club First Novel Award.

Shukman emerges from the shadows of swaying palm trees and his literary forebears, and produces something both authentic and exhilaratingly his own * Sunday Times * He's superb, like Conrad on speed -- Giles Foden * Conde Nast Traveller * Sharp and scrupulous-[Shukman] maintains a masterly tension and control * Daily Telegraph * Shukman's prose is utterly seductive * Literary Review * Pacy, pithy and full of wonderful, (often humorous) moments * Scotsman *