A Spanish woman trying to retire as an assassin, a French Foreign Legion deserter from Madagascar, a mysterious (perhaps CIA) woman from America, a billionaire military contractor, and a man wandering the seas alone on a sailing ship bump into each other in the Indian Ocean, and not all of them survive.
Mónica has had enough of her life as contract killer when she meets lonely wanderer Frank Baltimore in a stupidly expensive resort in Madagascar. A few hundred miles away, Alain has had more than enough of his solitary post on a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and so when the mysterious Skye offers him a job, he says yes—he doesn’t know if she is CIA, Wagner, Darkwater, or a gangster, but he wants in. She takes him to Diego Garcia, the top-secret US military base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, for training. Things turn ugly and deadly when a man from Frank’s past turns up trying to break into the lucrative, secretive, already crowded world of paramilitary contractors. He, Monica, Alain, and Skye end up on his bad side and turn to each other for help.
Troubled lives intersect in the Indian Ocean with explosive results in Lutz’s tantalizing follow-up to Born Slippy … Lutz keeps the plot moving at a steady clip while delving deep into his characters’ psyches, setting the stage for a shocking climax that lands with devastating emotional force.
Neo-noir fans will eat this up.
This novel will appeal to readers who like a slow burn, a deep dive into characters’ hearts and minds, and whose curiosity is piqued by stories involving racism and privilege. It’s also a profoundly disturbing tale about the callous disregard for the biodiversity of land masses like Chagos that are often exploited in get-rich-quick schemes.
An eco-thriller that builds toward an explosive conclusion.
Juan Felipe Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States:
“Tom Lutz casts a net across the oceans and brings us wanderers, seekers; ‘watchers’ of the seas; islands tasking a pendulum of love, danger, and lethal assignments in and out of resorts and bungalows. As always, Lutz has the psychological knack and a cultural, historical scent and sense. He sets scenes and characters that grip your innards. He will pull you into the swirling wander of the lost, the banished and the killer’s lust. Leap with him, jump into this thrashing, fascinating ship of ‘vast humanity.’”
Seth Greenland, author of A Hazard of New Fortunes:
“Chagos Archipelago is a crackling thrill ride. Deft and referential, it’s the novel Elmore Leonard would’ve written if he had a degree in Comp Lit. Pulsing with nasty energy.”
StephCha, author of Your House Will Pay:
“A whip-smart whirlwind novel of noir and adventure, humor and horror, cynicism and romance.”
