24 Hours With Gaspar

Author: Sabda Armandio

Translator: Lara Norgaard

Publisher: Seagull Books (2023)

Decades into the future, Indonesia’s crowded capital city is underwater. A mysterious novelist searches what remains of the metropolis for the story of an old, infamous crime. He combs the streets for traces of Gaspar: private-eye-cum-criminal-mastermind who plotted a seemingly simple robbery of a jewelry store. Far from just unlocking riches, however, the heist unearths a series of interlinking conflicts that have haunted Gaspar since childhood.

In this brilliant twist of genres, this book combines noir with a laugh-out-loud detective and touches of surreal science fiction. The book’s eclectic blend of allusions and narrative strategies opens new horizons for literary crime fiction while also painting a fresh, postmodern portrait of Jakarta. In a city webbed by roadways and canals, personal vendettas trace back to political crimes and social ills. First impressions can’t be trusted, meta-literary motorbikes possess free will, and a senile witness might be a police detective’s best bet at finding the true whodunnit—if we are to believe that a single truth exists at all. It is a chess game in which your knight no longer moves in the shape of an L, and Gaspar intends to win.