Harlequin

Cleverly constructed and even prescient, “Harlequin” never quite engages. It has serious defects, particularly in terms of character depth and development. The first person perspective might be to blame - we only see Harlequin through the eyes of Harlequin's bestie Paul Desmond, and Desmond is an Aussie boor, equipped by West with a cynical philosophy and a fine turn of phrase, but far too self-centred and shallow to take us right under Harlequin's skin.

We might have had a taut, chilling psychological study of two mighty antagonists, Harlequin and Yanko, determined to destroy each other by means foul. But West eschews a formidable opportunity, and delivers a banal thriller awash in formulaic characters and missing key emotional ingredients. The heights of his best work are out of view here. His previous novel, “The Salamander”, was considerably better, but “Harlequin” seems to accelerate a slide that resulted in the following year's “The Navigator”, an excruciating book that represents an embarrassing nadir in his otherwise distinguished career.