Tigerman

by Nick Harkaway
337 pgs

Tigerman is the latest book by Nick Harkaway, an author I'm becoming increasingly a fan of the more books he writes. He's the son of John le Carré, but he doesn't write in the same genre as his father. In fact, I'm not quite sure what genre Harkaway's books are in. They don't fit neatly into any of them. Case in point...

Lester Ferris is a 39-year-old Sargent in the British army, who's currently fulfilling a quiet assignment as the British consul on the island of Mancreau, in the Arabian Sea. Mancreau is a dying island. It was left scarred and polluted by decades of chemical manufacturing, so much so that seismic activity, which took place a decade or so ago, released clouds of toxic gases over the island, causing those who live there to face frightening diseases and severe birth defects.

One day, while Ferris is having tea in a small café, armed bandits crash through the doors and murder the owner. Things could have been far worse, if it weren't for Ferris's heroic actions. He single-handedly overpowers the bandits using nothing but a muffin tin, and while doing so, wins over a 10-year-old orphan who witnessed it. The boy goes by the name Robin and he's obsessed with comics and the heroes in their stories. A relationship forms between the two of them and Robin eventually convinces Lester to become a superhero. Together they create an eclectic costume with a gas mask, pieces of metal, and bits of bone and fur, and Lester finds himself stopping crimes in spectacular fashion as his alter ego: Tigerman.

Within the pages of Tigerman, Harkaway manages to successfully cram multiple types of stories together. On the one hand, it's a superhero-origin story, filled with some pretty impressive action scenes. On another hand, it's a mystery, as Lester continually searches for where Robin came from. But at its center is the story of the relationship that forms between the two characters, a relationship that changes both of them forever.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆