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Having never heard of Alex Garland I picked up his debut novel, "The Beach" because the cover and premise were intriguing. I'm happy to say that Mr. Garland delivered exactly what he promised and I breezed through this little yellow book in two days. If Jack Kerouac wore shorts and hung out with William Golding, the two might have produced something like this.

The Beach is compulsively readable because of several factors. First, the chapters are structured and trimmed into an expert lenght, often forming four or five page vignettes which allow for the good old "just one more" syndrome which kept many a reader turning the pages deep into the night. The second factor is the story, which is a grand adventure and never really lets up. I was never bored while reading The Beach, and constantly wanted to know what will happen next, and the book kept my excitement up to the very last sentence. Time flies, both for the readers and the characters, and after the experience both won't be the same.

The plot is simple: Richard, a twentysomething backpacker finds his way to Bangkok, where he checks into a cheap hostel on Khao San Road. There he meets a seemingly crazy neighbour who introduces himself as Daffy. Daffy speaks crazy talk about a remote island , located in a off-limits part of Thailand, forbidden for tourists. On this island is a beach, and Daffy describes is as a perfect utopia; Richard decides to go there along with the French couple he met at the hostel, and using a map drawn by Daffy sets out to find the legendary beach.

Now, this sounds like fun, and is exactly that - fun. The suspense is unbearable, and the adventure aspect of the novel is something rarely encountered in contemporary fiction. Seduced with the promise of a perfect hideout, the reader sets on along with Richard on a riveting and spectacular adventure. Everything about this book is well done, and it transports the reader into a dream of most Western travelers - a perfect island, unspoiled by commercial culture and an ideal place for idealistic people to set up. To shape their lives upon. What will Richard's arrival change? Will he adapt? Or will he not?

This is an exciting debut novel, dark and sinister, but also funny and laced with exciting cultural references. A fast and furious novel that transports the reader into another place, much like Golding's Lord of the Flies. The Golding comparison is unavoidable, but The Beach stands alone; Garland's writing is razor sharp and colloquial without being cliched, and guarantees for an intelligent page-turner. This is a definite keeper.