"Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett

Here's another book that has been languishing on my notional "to read" pile for far too long. As many of you will already know, Bel Canto is a book about a hostage situation. In an unnamed South American country, leftist guerillas take control of the house of the Vice President, hoping to kidnap the President.

The occasion is the birthday party of a Japanese businessman and obsessive opera fan, Mr. Hosokawa. The country is hoping to convince him to build a factory and, to entice him, they have invited the world's leading soprano, Roxane Coss, to sing for him.

I really enjoyed the book. Patchett explores the effects of living in a hostage situation on a core group of characters. There's no real protagonist (except perhaps Gen, the translator, who is present at almost all interactions due to the wide range of nationalities present at the party).

It's quite hard to write more about the book without doing massive spoilers. Both my wife and my mother-in-law started reading it and then gave up. I'd say it was definitely worth persevering past the first serveral pages. It's a charming, unusual book. I think the tone in which it is written is perhaps a little too arch and knowing for some, but I really savoured it.