Tigerman is a bizarre mashup that grips the reader from beginning to end.

The story is set on a fictional island on the cusp of apocalyptic environmental collapse. As powerful nations gather to play their role in the island’s undoing, life on the island becomes more and more stressed. And stressed people don’t always behave rationally.

The emotional gravity of the novel centres on the relationship between Sergeant Lester Ferris, a symbol of British power, and a street kid with a penchant for comic books and technology.

So the book mashes up relationship and action, geopolitical games and local life, and most interestingly, genre. I’m unsure whether to consider this as literature proper or action or mystery or … it doesn’t matter. The confluence of style is compelling.

I picked up this book from a thrift store after stumbling across one of Nick Harkaway’s short stories in a Twelve Tomorrows collection. I’m now on the lookout for more.

Harkaway, Nick. Tigerman: A Novel. Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.