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A review by weaselweader
The Stone Monkey by Jeffery Deaver
4.0
“Why don’t you people just stay at home? Fix your problems there.”
Deaver put this ugly question into the mouth of a racist INS agent, interrogating an illegal Chinese immigrant. But we all know it could just as easily have come from Donald Trump’s maniacal berating of former Mexican president, Vicente Fox, in support of the construction of his hated border wall. THE STONE MONKEY, a tale of a psychopathic human trafficker and the cultural difficulties of large scale immigration, ostensibly illegal, by refugees from Communist China, was written twenty years ago but right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA today has made it more timely now than when Deaver first put the tale to paper.
Forensic scientist extraordinaire, Lincoln Rhyme, and his partner, Amelia Sachs, have partnered up with the FBI and the Coast Guard on a sting operation to capture “the Ghost”, a homicidal human smuggler who has earned that moniker with his uncanny ability to move immigrants and himself and vanish into thin air. As the trap is set to close on a certain capture, the Ghost does the gruesome unthinkable. He explodes a bomb and scuttles the ship in a cruel, pathological attempt to murder the ship’s captain, its crew and the entire cargo of immigrants. When the Ghost melts into New York City’s China town, Deaver and Sachs are embroiled in a desperate race to track him down before he murders the remaining survivors and disappears once again into the criminal ether.
Aside from being a typically brilliant Lincoln Rhyme thriller with the usual string of extraordinary deductions from the most unassuming tidbits of forensic evidence, THE STONE MONKEY is also an informative commentary on the Chinese culture. We see policing from a Chinese police officer’s perspective which, aside from the main plot, is fascinating in its own right. We also see the struggles of Chinese dissidents to leave Communist China and to assimilate into our entirely foreign western culture.
And, of course, we see racism, hatred and xenophobia. And what was the hopeful immigrant’s answer to the INS agent’s bigoted and spiteful query? Well, here it is … a devastating mic-drop take down of US jingoism and self-congratulation:
“Not our fault … Coming here not our fault!”
Amused, the INS agent asked, “Not your fault? Who do you want to blame?”
“You country!”
“How do you figure that?”
“You not see? Look around! All you money and richnesses, you advertising, you computers, you Nikes and Levis, cars, hair spray … You Leonardo DiCaprio, you beautiful women. You pills for everything, you makeup, you television! You tell whole world you got fuck everything here! [You] all money, all freedom, all safe. You tell us everybody how good is here. You take our money, but you say to us mei-you, go away! You tell us our human rights terrible, but when we try come here you say mei-you!”
And THAT from Jeffrey Deaver (bravo!), an author it must be remembered from the USA!
Paul Weiss
Deaver put this ugly question into the mouth of a racist INS agent, interrogating an illegal Chinese immigrant. But we all know it could just as easily have come from Donald Trump’s maniacal berating of former Mexican president, Vicente Fox, in support of the construction of his hated border wall. THE STONE MONKEY, a tale of a psychopathic human trafficker and the cultural difficulties of large scale immigration, ostensibly illegal, by refugees from Communist China, was written twenty years ago but right-wing anti-immigrant sentiment in the USA today has made it more timely now than when Deaver first put the tale to paper.
Forensic scientist extraordinaire, Lincoln Rhyme, and his partner, Amelia Sachs, have partnered up with the FBI and the Coast Guard on a sting operation to capture “the Ghost”, a homicidal human smuggler who has earned that moniker with his uncanny ability to move immigrants and himself and vanish into thin air. As the trap is set to close on a certain capture, the Ghost does the gruesome unthinkable. He explodes a bomb and scuttles the ship in a cruel, pathological attempt to murder the ship’s captain, its crew and the entire cargo of immigrants. When the Ghost melts into New York City’s China town, Deaver and Sachs are embroiled in a desperate race to track him down before he murders the remaining survivors and disappears once again into the criminal ether.
Aside from being a typically brilliant Lincoln Rhyme thriller with the usual string of extraordinary deductions from the most unassuming tidbits of forensic evidence, THE STONE MONKEY is also an informative commentary on the Chinese culture. We see policing from a Chinese police officer’s perspective which, aside from the main plot, is fascinating in its own right. We also see the struggles of Chinese dissidents to leave Communist China and to assimilate into our entirely foreign western culture.
And, of course, we see racism, hatred and xenophobia. And what was the hopeful immigrant’s answer to the INS agent’s bigoted and spiteful query? Well, here it is … a devastating mic-drop take down of US jingoism and self-congratulation:
“Not our fault … Coming here not our fault!”
Amused, the INS agent asked, “Not your fault? Who do you want to blame?”
“You country!”
“How do you figure that?”
“You not see? Look around! All you money and richnesses, you advertising, you computers, you Nikes and Levis, cars, hair spray … You Leonardo DiCaprio, you beautiful women. You pills for everything, you makeup, you television! You tell whole world you got fuck everything here! [You] all money, all freedom, all safe. You tell us everybody how good is here. You take our money, but you say to us mei-you, go away! You tell us our human rights terrible, but when we try come here you say mei-you!”
And THAT from Jeffrey Deaver (bravo!), an author it must be remembered from the USA!
Paul Weiss