Lust, Greed, Murder
October 5th, 2006 by Joel Rozen in Books
This week’s piece on resident moose-and-squirrel trapper Harv Hollek makes note of his fledgling career as a novelist, but it seems only fair that I give the ol’ man his due. Harv’s second book, Uzbek Option, hit bookstores last January; his first — if Airleaf’s breathless PR site is to be believed — already has Hollywood in its thrall; and a third’s on the way. I’ve been assured that Quinn Rafferty, the author’s loveable sharp-shooting adventurer, plays a prominent role throughout the series.
Last week, I picked up a copy of Bishkek: Lust, Greed, Murder (still in print!) at Sarasota News & Books for my own review…
And well, well, well: from its molten-hot opening encounter with a Slavic prostitute at the Shermertyevo Airport to its polyamorous subplot involving the (aptly named) Simon Ho, and into home with a concluding idyll in Moscow (”‘You are getting bigger by the second, my love…’”), all 342 pages glisten with lurid detail and are — the perv in me is pleased to announce — gloriously semen-stained. (”Some of it’s too porn-y for my wife,” Harv confessed last week over lunch. “But all of these experiences are the truth. You’ll find it all in Kyrgyzstan!”)
It’s quite a read. For the puritans among us, however, here are a few alternatives — equally transcontinental and no less adventurous, but happily bereft of Hollek’s in-your-face cock talk:
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, by Chingiz Aitmatov (widely considered the Kyrgyzs national literary treasure)
This Is Not Civilization, by Robert Rosenberg
The Lost Heart of Asia, by Colin Thubron
Safari: A Chronicle of Adventure, by Bartle Bull
The Hunter, The Hammer, and Heaven: Journeys to Three Worlds Gone Mad, by Robert Young Pelton
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, by Robert D. Kaplan
The Ends of the Earth: From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy, by Robert D. Kaplan
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, by Rebecca West
Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert, by William Langewiesche
…Come on guys, which ones am I missing?
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