The Laughing Monsters

The Laughing Monsters is a spy novel by Denis Johnson published in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The Laughing Monsters is set largely in the African countries of Sierra Leone, Congo and Uganda in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, conflicts which Johnson witnessed and reported on as a journalist. The title of the novel is a reference to the Happy Mountains of the Congo, where the novel's climax takes place. The mountain range was dubbed the Laughing Monsters by the 19th Century missionary James Hannington. The title also characterizes the two chief protagonists of the novel. Plot Part One Roland Nair, of Danish-American descent, arrives in Freetown, Sierra Leone from Amsterdam after a 10-year absence. He is 38 years-of-age. A NATO employee and CIA fiber-optic specialist, he trafficks high-value intelligence. He returns to Africa to renew his friendship with his former confederate Michael Adriko. Michael, a 36-year-old Ugandan of Arab-African descent, is a US trained combat mercenary, and a profiteer during the genocidal African wars of the 1990s. Nair (who goes by his last name) hopes to reestablish their lucrative partnership - and to collect information on Michael for Nato Intelligence Interoperability Architecture (NIIA). Tina is Nair's lover and a former NATO attorney in the Netherlands who unwittingly collaborates in his schemes.