A CANDLE OR THE SUN by...

A CANDLE OR THE SUN by Gopal Baratham (Serpent’s Tail: $15.99; 224 pp., paperback original). Singapore ranks among the cleanest, safest and most economically advanced societies in modern Asia--and among the most minutely regulated. Baratham explores the dark side of that carefully ordered world in his brooding first novel. Crises threaten to overwhelm narrator Hernando Perera: His father is dying of cancer, he’s about to lose his job and his mistress is preparing to run away with the charismatic leader of a breakaway Christian cult. As Perera enters the maze of intrigue surrounding an underground newspaper, he finds the strength to rise above his idle existence and achieve a dubious heroism. Although the plot seems needlessly complicated at times, Baratham captures the grim realities of life under an all-pervasive cultural dictatorship. Significantly, the book has not been published in the author’s native Singapore.