Michael Ondaatje — Anil\'s Ghost

Picador 2000 Paperback, 320pp. The time is our own time. The place Sri Lanka, the island nation off the southern tip of India, a country formerly known as Ceylon, steeped in centuries of cultural achievement and tradition and forced into the late 20th century by the ravages of civil war and the consequences of a government divided against itself. Into this maelstrom steps a young woman, Anil Tissera, born in Sri Lanka, educated in America, a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to work with local officials to discover the source of the organised campaigns of murder engulfing the island. Bodies are discovered. Skeletons. And particularly one, nicknamed \'Sailor\'. Owner\'s Name inside. (ISBN: 9780330480772). Good.