A DANCER IN THE DUST

A man wrestles with demons from his past in Cook’s introspective if at times overly drawn-out novel.

Ray Campbell lives comfortably in Manhattan as a risk management consultant, advising others when and if to take a chance on everything from stocks to property deals. Cook (Sandrine’s Case, 2013, etc.) excels at merging contemporary and past storylines into one narrative, and it’s no different here: Ray is haunted by his time spent in the fictional African country of Lubanda 20 years earlier. With all the good intentions of the best, if most naïve, aid worker, Ray spent a year in Lubanda, a country rife with violent internal conflicts, as part of the NGO Hope for Lubanda. There, he met the only woman he ever loved, Martine Aubert. Of French and Belgian descent, Martine was born in Lubanda and considered herself a native of the country, an assertion that increasingly chafed the government, who considered all whites a foreign menace to be eradicated. It’s clear early on that Martine will meet an untimely, and likely grisly, end during what’s referred to as the Tumasi Road Incident, but Cook dances around the facts for a few beats too long, and the suspense deflates. Spurred on by the murder of an old friend from his Lubanda days, Seso Alaya, who traveled to New York with a mysterious message that likely got him killed, Ray returns to Lubanda, both to avenge Seso’s death and try to assuage his own guilt about Martine's fate.

Cook masterfully captures the tumultuous state of a country in upheaval; it’s a shame the story doesn’t match the richness of the setting.