- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan; 1st Edition edition (Aug 2 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1405005599
- ISBN-13: 978-1405005593
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15 x 2.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 399 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The Trade Mission, Andrew Pyper's follow-up to his hugely successful Lost Girls, has the look and the premise of a Hollywood-ready Michael Crichton knockoff, complete with jungles, mysterious South American gunmen, high-tech millionaires, and bad sex in Brazilian brothels. Fortunately, The Trade Mission is a more substantial thriller, smart enough (and filled with enough moral quagmires) to be compared to the "entertainments" of Graham Greene but cool and gritty enough to be read in a single, lazy day.
The titular trade mission is one of those travelling economic circuses that are so beloved of the Canadian government. Readers will be happy to learn that Pyper has interests beyond the drunken schmoozing of Liberals on vacation: he focuses on the sideshow, a strange dot-com startup called Hypothesys, an Internet-based "morality machine" that helps users navigate through the thorniest of personal problems. After a brief spate of convention-going, the Hypothesys team--the inseparable wunderkind tycoons Marcus Wallace and Jonathon Bates; a doughy American executive; a fashionable, pregnant Brit; and their frumpy, failed-academic translator, Crossman (who is also The Trade Mission's deliciously wry narrator)--embarks on an ecotour cruise up the Rio Negro, where they are abducted and tortured, seemingly at random, by a handful of anonymous guerrillas. When they make their escape into the jungle, their predicament only worsens.
Pyper has written an extraordinarily sharp and original novel, one with plenty to say about everything from childbirth to the global reception of Canadian culture. The Trade Mission is a fine demonstration of how so-called "literary thrillers" ought to be done. --Jack Illingworth --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The ad copy on the back of the proofs for Pyper's second novel (after Lost Girls) points out just what's right, and what's wrong, with the book: "The Trade Mission is a gripping, ingeniously plotted thriller with an underlying literary interest in social criticism...." The novel does grip, and while its plot-two young North American software entrepreneurs and their colleagues visiting Brazil are kidnapped by extortionists in the jungle, then escape for a chase-isn't quite ingenious, it's clever enough; so far so good. The problem is the "underlying literary interest in social criticism." One supposes the copywriter mentioned "literary" as a pointer to Pyper's prose, which is lush and suffused with psychological insight, but which too often draws attention to itself at the expense of the story. The "social criticism" is relayed through character studies-the kidnapped are extremely complex creations, as is their Canadian translator, a woman rapidly approaching middle age, who narrates; her probings into the differences rendered by wealth, class and age among the kidnapped, and between them and their captors, are perceptive and fresh. The novel takes a serious wrong turn, though, when the kidnapped are harbored by a tribe of Yanomami Indians. While giving the narrator plenty of chance to comment on the degradation of the rain forest and its peoples by industrial interests, this turn feels contrived; it leads to the kidnapped ingesting a native hallucinogen, which exacerbates the murkiness of the narrator's perceptions and results in a storytelling muddle that Pyper straightens out only through further contrivances. Pyper is a talented stylist and a masterful psychological portraitist, but his new novel is a slog.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Oh my...,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Trade Mission (Hardcover)
Considering how good Lost Girls was, I was really looking forward to reading this book. However, it was extremely disappointing. First, Pyper should *not* have tried to write a book with a female main character. It took me about 15 pages to even realize it was a woman. Almost everything she said or did seemed unrealistic and/or forced to me. Also, there was no "eeriness" in this book like there was in Lost Girls. There were a few attempts at "creepy" scenes, but they just ended up being cheesy. The whole premise of the book was bland and unoriginal: rich North American execs are kidnapped in a foreign country and terrible things ensue. Try as they might, they can't figure out why they've been targeted. Then, in the last few pages, all is revealed! Surprise! Too bad it wasn't at all surprising.Andrew Pyper is capable of much better writing than this. I hope that his next book is better.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dissapointing,
By
This review is from: The Trade Mission (Hardcover)
Ok. I'll admit it. I had high hopes for this novel. Both of Andrew Pyper's other novels that I've read (The Killing Circle and Lost Girls) were great reads. The storyline from each of those novels were well written and I found myself unable to put the book down. Unfortunately, The Trade Mission does not fall in to this category.The premise of the novel starts out great. Internet boy millionaires go out on a jungle cruise in the Amazon. Shortly after the trip starts their boat gets overrun by pirates and the members of the internet team get held hostage. After several days of torture they manage to escape and the self introspection begins. So first the good points. The book is well written. Descriptions of the Amazon jungle are fantastic and the dialogue that takes place between the characters is at times so realistic that I could believe people would actually say the things I was reading on the printed page. So what didn't I like? The book is entirely formulaic. Pyper starts out with a great premise but blows it by falling in to the same old cliches that other writers have used time and time again. When I had finally finished reading the book I was left rolling my eyes and saying to myself "oh, not this again". As adventure novels go, take a pass on this one.
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Up-to-Date of Heart of Darkness,
By
This review is from: The Trade Mission (Paperback)
A pretty neat book about a group of young Canadian business men and a female translator who go to Brazil on a trade mission. The trip into the Amazon leads to a kidnapping by locals. Gets pretty graphic and gruesome. Through the adventure some don't make it, one goes native (aka Heart of Darkness) and one comes back to sanity to tell the tale.
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