Archive - December 23, 2011

A Friend in the Police by John Givens (South Korea 1967–69) Concord ePress October 2011 195 pp. $7.77 (Kindle) Reviewed by Darcy Munson Meijer (Gabon 1982–84) JOHN GIVENS’ A FRIEND IN THE POLICE is intense, mysterious and imbued with a sense of jungle doom. The story shares parallels with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but Givens adds humor and a modern twist to make the story more accessible and quite enjoyable. Givens locates Friend in a nameless jungle “Republic” —  a combination of Southeast Asian locales — and populates it sparsely with strange characters. George Bates has come from the United States to find his young adult son, Philip. He fears he is in police detention, but doesn’t know what for. He meets only blocks in his search, in the person of Detective Sergeant Xlong and his witless officers. Xlong knows something about Philip, but he won’t tell. He hints of . . .