House of the Tiger King: A Jungle Obsession

This author is an amazing writer. The words bring his stories to life in ways others cannot. You can picture the places and what he is experiencing. I have read all his books.

If you've read others of Shah's book, The House of the Tiger King will feel both familiar and a little different. Familiar in so far as he writes well, puts himself in unusual predicaments and circles around arcane knowledge without drowning you in the stuff. However, the House of the Tiger King finds him transformed into a more obsessive, more punishing individual. Much of this, of course, drives the story. Despite the things that lighten the story of harsh adventure in the Peruvian jungles (some of which we could do without, such as the tiring references to Pot Noodles), this is a darker tale than usual. The worry is that Shah having written his way around the world, pushing himself further and further for his stories, is not going to run out of stories to write about, but a way in which to write them. He seems to have backed himself into a corner in this one, the intrepid, manic voyager, forgetful of wife and child, driven by obsession. So when the next book comes out, do we find that the obsession was just manufactured for the sake of the book, or can he perform a magician's trick and reinvent himself again?