FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL REVIEWS "At the start of Stone's fine third thriller to feature PI Ray Sharp (after Grave Imports), Ray has just arrived in Jakarta from Hong Kong, his current home, to check the legitimacy of a deal between an oil and gas company, Motex, and an Australian mining outfit, Lucky Break, that's claiming a major gold discovery in Sumatra. Then Ray's estranged wife, Sylvia, turns up and offers him a deal: if he'll find her missing boyfriend, she'll give him a trouble-free divorce. Loyal, tough, funny and catnip to the ladies, Ray ping-pongs between his Russian prostitute lover, Irina, and a number of Indonesian lovelies, most of whom are bar girls, smalltime thieves or working some sort of con in an attempt to rise above the grinding local poverty, as he searches for answers. Inspired by the real-life Bre-X gold fraud of 1997, this entry is particularly notable for its steamy Indonesian setting."    —Publishers Weekly "Much more than a mystery, Flight of the Hornbill is a study of the dysfunction of human relationships in a territory that is harshly unforgiving of weakness. Think Somerset Maugham dragged screaming into the zeitgeist and writing like Ross Thomas at the very top of his game."    —Ken Bruen, author of Cross and Priest "Eric Stone captures the full splendor and squalor of Asia's heart with this finely wrought, magnificent novel."    —Cornelia Read, author of The Crazy School "Eric Stone's Flight of the Hornbill brings forth the best of its genre but scarcely stops there. Reading it comes to feel like what it must be to walk alongside its wry and complicated hero, Ray Sharp, on a shimmery Indonesian night: as you turn the pages, you can feel the heat on the Jakarta air, taste the rice wine, sense the tug of a malaria fever dream. The riveting, twisty story keeps the pages turning, but we are rewarded time and again by the haunted characters who populate Stone's Indonesia: melancholy expats, canny and kind hustlers, and most of all Ray himself, world-wise but never world-weary, blurry with desire, stricken by doubts and ballasted by his own keen and expansive morality."    —Megan Abbott, author of Edgar-winning Queenpin "Thick with atmosphere, rich in characters and lightning-fast pacing. This is a terrific read."    —Tim Maleeny, author of Beating the Babushka "Rich in atmosphere, intrigue and eroticism, Flight of the Hornbill recalls the best of Graham Greene in its ability to transport us to cloying, sinister climes we can smell and tasteŠ Stone knows of what he writes and his authority comes through on every page, giving this thriller not just a propulsive pace, but suffusing it with the weight of authenticity; of hard-earned and world-weary experience of the sorry depths of human wickedness in pursuit of wealth."    —Craig McDonald, author of Edgar, Anthony and Gumshoe nominated Head Games "Eric Stone's Flight of the Hornbill is a lot of fun. What distinguishes Stone's novel is the great sympathy his hero has for the street people he meets, and his large appetite for danger and romance. Read this book and you'll get hooked on Eric Stone's off beat series."    —Robert Ward, author of Four Kinds of Rain