Ebook: The Scorpion Fish

On an unamed Island that can only be Ceylon, the traveller checks into his 117th rented room, abandoned by his lover, poor and feverish. A book on Indian insects deepens his morbid fascination with the crawling inhabitants of the room-''a pretty world of killers''- barely distinguishable from the insect like habitues of the local cafe, the charlatans and fake exorcists, the indolent landowners, merchants and priests. In this exhausted state, he grows antennae that are ‘tensed between the real and the occult'. The distinction between fact and fiction is blurred, but in this world of the imagina.;Cover; Title Page; Dedication; Contents; Epigraph; I: Cape Comorin; II: The Customs Officer; III: Galle; IV: The 117th Room; V: The Capital; VI: The Bus; VII: The Zone of Silence; VIII: Indigo Street; IX: Four Grains of Hellebore; X: Scorpio and Pisces; XI: A Pinch of Curiosity ... ; XII: Showing Tonight; XIII: 'One is often in need of something very small indeed'; XIV: Homage to Fleming; XV: Circe; XVI: Padre; XVII: A Gentleman Companion; XVIII: Remember to Remember; XIX: This Morning ... ; XX: The Last Enchanter; Afterword; Copyright.