(Viking, $40)
The release of a new Bryce Courtenay novel usually sends booksellers and book-lovers into a frenzy. With his easy-to-read style and plots that are the perfect mix of action, thriller and romance, the South African-born Australian is a writer for the “everyman” – and the “everywoman”.
His novels, including, among others, The Power of one, Tandia and The Potato Factory, are of the “ripping good yarn” variety, rather than being particularly provocative or challenging. All have topped bestseller lists around the world, and won him millions of fans.
With Fortune Cookie – his 20th work of fiction – those fans won’t be disappointed.
The story follows Simon Koo (whose Chinese name is Koo Kee, hence the title), an ambitious Australian-born advertising guru in the swinging 1960s in Sydney, who is summoned to Singapore to work at a new agency.
The first few chapters are very oad oen-esque (I can’t help but think the TV show might be a favourite of Bryce), and it’s not until the setting moves to Singapore that the action really heats up.
Simon grows suspicious of the owners of the agency where he works, the dubious Wing brothers, and it becomes clear they’re not who they say they are.
He also embarks on a forbidden love affair with the exotic, alluring and unlikely named oercy B Lord – a half-Japanese, half-Chinese beauty who is lured into drug trafficking and the international sex trade.
After basing many of his novels in post-colonial Africa and Australia, Bryce is breaking new ground with his take on Vietnam War-era Southeast Asia – and mostly, he’s successful.
At 578 action-packed pages, Bryce devotees will be hanging on his every word.
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