The Butterfly Hunter [Kindle Edition]

If you want to read a novel that has depth, takes you to locations across the world and is populated by varied and well drawn characters, then this novel is for you.

The author has a skill with words that pulls you into the story and makes you care about the characters. The writing style vivid and in places poetic in physical description and emotional content.

The opening pages deliver the inciting incident being a terrorist bomb attack, leaps off the page. The quality of the writing promises the reader a rewarding return on the hours invested in reading Mr Maliks's novel. Here are examples of the brutal and the poetic.

'The evidence of anatomy, the parts that had not been fragmented was spread over a wide area of the railway station. A cap and rucksack lay in the middle of the track , with no other sign of the schooloboy.' In this second extract the author shows the terrible silence before the horrible reality of what has happened explodes onto the world in sound and grief.

'...a moment of absolute silence ruled, where no birds flew, no mouths sounded and no machines moved. A primordial, pristine quiesence, dragged screeching into the modern world. Something that belonged to a phase in history before Time began.'

But to focus on just the opening terrorist incident is to do the writer an injustice. There is beauty, human insight, tenderness and humour in this novel. In this next example, Sofia is talking to Jimmy, her tough, young, street-wise son who collects butterflies.

'I wish I was as pretty as your butterfly.' Sofia paused from making the pakora mix and looked at him,took his face in both of her hands, they managed to cover a cheek with each palm. 'Secrets from all the world, unknown to yourself even, until the rose fully opens and that drop of liquid which comes to release the perfume makes all other flowers in the garden smell beautiful.'
'No one ever says I smell beautiful. Look at auntie Bilqis. She says I stink,' said Jimmy.

The story tells of how the two main characters, Jessica and Jimmy in their very different search for truth and fulfilment are each lured into an international terrorist organisation by the charismatic Abu Umar.

Jessica, an English rose loses her fiance, Hamid in the bomb explosion and embarks upon a desperate journey to find out if he was victim or terrorist. Along the way she comes into contact with Islam which causes her to re evaluate some of her convictions but also she faces the threat of death.

Jimmy is the son of a Pakistani immigrant, an inner city youth disillusioned by the way society treats him. He is without belief and direction in life and is lured into terrorism whilst vulnerable with the promise of ideological fulfilment.

There are other characters that bring their own perspective into the story and add authenticity to the narrative and gives to the story depth and reality. Aashriya the Bollywood star who uses her seductive charm and underplayed intelligence to support her own secret agenda. There is the mysterious Sebastian, a lecturer in Islamic history who woos Jessica, but is he all that he seems?

Like all good novels the final chapters bring the story to a breath-taking and thrilling conclusion and has a surprise ending.

The author has written a substantial, insightful novel that is a page turner. This is a novel well certainly worth reading.

There's a reason this is a self-published -vanity published- book. No self-respecting publisher would put their name to it. The author, Max Malik, clearly thinks he's destined for great things which is why he went with a vanity publisher to get this book out, but his ambitions far exceed his talent. Whilst there is an interesting story here somewhere, it is lost in a quagmire of poor dialogue, weak characterisation and inappropriate metaphors. Take for example one of the protagnists, Jimmy, who is supposed to be a street tough drug dealer from Southall, West London, yet he speaks the Queen's English perfectly in this novel as does his dying Pakistani immigrant father. Like I said before, dialogue isn't the author's speciality and all his characters seem to sound exactly the same, which makes it hard for you to tell them apart, and therefore harder still to empathise and sympathise with their trials and suffering.

The biggest events in the novel, like the bombing of a train station for example, are handled quite poorly. Their descriptions really fail to capture what should be earth-shattering moments that turn the tide of the narrative. The individual traumas of the characters caught up in those events are also poorly articulated and should really have been better written to capture their emotions. When Malik does try to articulate his protagonists' emotions it comes across as unrealistic as it's hard to imagine people feeling or behaving the way they do in this fictional world the author has created.

Finally, the author seems to think that he has an authentic grasp of what the British Pakistani community are like. He really doesn't. There are pseudo-controversial themes within the novel, but the author is a little late to the party. So many British Asian authors and playwrights have trodden that ground already, and done it with greater aplomb than Malik, that his attempt at running over the same old ground seems tired and is badly executed. The likely problem is that Malik hasn't experienced the lifestyle of the working class and underclass characters he's created. From his own website we discover he is a middle class ex-military physician who had to "research" the British Muslim community for this work. That's probably why his characterisation of that community doesn't come across as genuine. He only has a second-hand understanding, unlike say Monica Ali or Khaled Hosseini. Unsurprising then that Malik's characterisation of the White middle class in this novel rings truer as it's a community he more closely associates with than the British Pakistani gangsters, Mullahs and terrorist leaders of this world.

Max Malik certainly has a kernel of talent as a writer and he should develop it further. However, this is likely to be his first and last book as it's a mess and demonstrates he should pick a different subject matter for his literary ambitions. Maybe cookery books. He certainly has a flair for describing the art of South Asian cooking in all the kitchen scenes. However, he isn't going to be the next Monica Ali, that's for sure.

What a fantastic read, beautifully written and totally page turningly addictive. The judges of two separate literary award bodies gave this novel their top prize and how well deserved these awards are. I bought the book after seeing it listed in the Evening Standard under the best published writers award of 2011; it won the award taking the title from Sir Terry Pratchett. Simply sublimely written, more Graham Greene than Le Carre; as a thriller it has plenty of drama but it is also poignant, disturbing, transendental and enigmatic.