The Hamilton Case

The Hamilton Case

$12.00 AUD

Availability: in stock at our Melbourne warehouse.




NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.

Author: Michelle de Kretser

Format: Hardback

Number of Pages: 312


MURDER, A MOONLESS NIGHT, THE JUNGLE CROWDING CLOSE... The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations and jungle, decay, corruption and the backwash of empire, this gripping nuanced novel has a pitch-perfect ear for the comedy and a sharp eye for the tragedy of a world at the end of its tether. Sam Obeysekere - 'obey' by name and by nature - is a Ceylonese lawyer, a pefect product of empire. His family once had wealth and influence but starts to crack open as political change comes to the island, and Sam's glamorous father dies leaving gambling debts. But the Obeysekeres' troubles reach back into the past, when a baby was found dead in his cot. And at the heart of the novel is THE HAMILTON CASE, a murder scandal that shakes the upper echelons of island society. Sam's involvement in it makes his name but sets his life on course for disappointment. Full of irresistible characters - Sam himself, a triumph of ambivalence, resentment and pathos; his beautiful, unstable sister; his flamboyant mother Maud - this is a sinuous, constantly suprising tale. It paints a haunting picture of the end of an era, suffused with 'the unbearable thought that everything might have
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Description
NB: This is a secondhand book in very good condition. See our FAQs for more information. Please note that the jacket image is indicative only. A description of our secondhand books is not always available. Please contact us if you have a question about this title.

Author: Michelle de Kretser

Format: Hardback

Number of Pages: 312


MURDER, A MOONLESS NIGHT, THE JUNGLE CROWDING CLOSE... The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations and jungle, decay, corruption and the backwash of empire, this gripping nuanced novel has a pitch-perfect ear for the comedy and a sharp eye for the tragedy of a world at the end of its tether. Sam Obeysekere - 'obey' by name and by nature - is a Ceylonese lawyer, a pefect product of empire. His family once had wealth and influence but starts to crack open as political change comes to the island, and Sam's glamorous father dies leaving gambling debts. But the Obeysekeres' troubles reach back into the past, when a baby was found dead in his cot. And at the heart of the novel is THE HAMILTON CASE, a murder scandal that shakes the upper echelons of island society. Sam's involvement in it makes his name but sets his life on course for disappointment. Full of irresistible characters - Sam himself, a triumph of ambivalence, resentment and pathos; his beautiful, unstable sister; his flamboyant mother Maud - this is a sinuous, constantly suprising tale. It paints a haunting picture of the end of an era, suffused with 'the unbearable thought that everything might have