It's a long way from the life of a railroad worker in the western United States of the early 20th century to the world of double-crossing double agents in contemporary Africa. That Denis Johnson was able to make an imaginative leap of that magnitude from his Pulitzer Prize-nominated novella, Train Dreams, to The Laughing Monsters, is further evidence of his versatility and talent.
"Since nine-eleven, chasing fairy tales has turned into a serious business. An industry. A lucrative one." That comment--addressed to Roland Nair, the half-Danish, half-American NATO operative who's traveled from Amsterdam to Sierra Leone to reconnect with Michael Adriko, an African-born, American-trained mercenary and former ally--aptly sums up the flavor of this novel. It's a story that enmeshes the two men in schemes involving the sale of valuable government secrets and enriched uranium, their attempted execution alternating between the comical and the deadly.
As Nair and Adriko traverse the continent, their roles shift from pursuers to pursued. Johnson keeps readers guessing about who is playing whom, and wondering whether this uneasy friendship can survive the plots, counterplots and the pressures of the hostile environment. There are no good guys or bad ones in the shadow land inhabited by these often-desperate men, and Johnson resists rendering moral judgments on their audacious intrigues. Instead, he's content to create a world few of us would want to inhabit permanently but will be more than happy to live in for the few hours it takes to read this clever, diverting novel. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer