The Devil's Garden - Softcover

`Wilbur Smith once told me that adventure novels set
in South America don't really work. Well, it always takes
a young pup to prove an old dog wrong. Here comes
Edward Docx, author of the acclaimed Self Help, to do
just that, and fabulously well. Even readers not in love
with that genre [the thriller] will enjoy the pleasures of
Docx's writing . . . a novel which is as full of intellectual
provocations as it is of suspenseful turns' --Giles Foden, Guardian

`Docx is a master of disquiet, and brilliantly captures
the bewildering effect of the forest. He's produced a
memorable cast . . . all portrayed with great artistry and
imagination. Immensely intelligent' --Spectator

`Docx's real skill lies in the storytelling. There is a
constant sense that more is occurring in this strange
place than Forle is telling us, so that when he finally does
explode, it's shocking and satisfying. It's an unusually
intelligent thriller that refuses to take sides. One suspects
Conrad would have rather enjoyed it' --Metro

`written in punchy action-packed paragraphs' --The Economist

`In twinning a zoologist protagonist with gripping drama,
Docx is in respected company - with William Boyd, for
example, and Jill Dawson . . . Docx dexterously conjures
up the drought-stricken jungle: the suffocating, soupy
atmosphere, fascinating wildlife and startling beauty . . .
The escalating threat and the way in which a history of
exploitation, hypocrisy and corruption breeds further
immorality and violence are reminiscent of novels by
J. M. Coetzee or Damon Galgut. This poisoned Eden
throbs with intensity, and delivers a gut punch that leaves
you reeling.'
--Independent on Sunday

`Set deep in the South American jungle, Edward Docx's
brooding novel, with its Conradian echoes, pits western
"progress" against nature . . . the action sequences are
convincingly adrenaline-soaked . . . while, crucially, the
personality of the narrator protagonist remains opaque
behind his beautifully crafted, vaguely antique prose.
At the end of The Devil's Garden, it is the forest itself,
in all its teeming, ant-infested gloominess, that remains
most memorable.' --Sunday Times Culture

`A confident and compelling novel, which also takes in
intrigue and adventure, terror and torture, drugs and
booze . . . It's a riveting Conradian page-turner' --Dazed and Confused

`A charged, compelling fiction that moves from uncomfortable
stand off to murderous pursuit while tilting at
some of the cherished liberal ideals of Western civil -
isation' --Independent

`The Devil's Garden reads like a thriller but has fascinating
moral and political dimensions. The description
of the jungle is horrific, making this a great contender
as a Heart of Darkness for the twenty-first century' --Bookseller

`Written with the economy of a political thriller, Docx
relates how Forle - a man with a difficult past - is gradually
drawn into a small-scale conflict . . . Reminiscent of
Damon Galgut and Brian Moore, Docx conjures up an
amoral universe inhabited by chancers and damaged
loners . . . the spell of the rainforest is hard to resist: from
the constant insect trill "like some great tinnitus", to skies
that change from "wan and smoky blue" to "peach and
pale vermilion".'
--Lady

From the Booker-longlisted author of Self Help, a mesmeric thriller of corruption in the heart of the Amazon