Reading Nick Stone's novel, I kept thinking about the Haitian tourist industry and how irked it would be by his work. My guess is that the two most-read books on Haiti are CLR James's The Black Jacobins, detailing Toussaint l'Ouverture's slave revolt and the war of independence from France in 1803, and Graham Greene's The Comedians, which depicts Papa Doc's dictatorship. Apart from that, I suspect most of us hear about Haiti (despite it being the only country I know of that has a Council of Sages) only when it comes top in some ranking of benightedness. Some countries seem exclusively reserved for misery. (There is, I discovered on the net, a Haitian tourist ministry, but, appropriately, its website didn't work.)

Stone's protagonist is Miami private eye Max Mingus, a world-weary ex-cop, ex-con descendant of Sam Spade, who is invited to take on the job of finding a child, missing presumed kidnapped in Haiti. "He knew this about Haiti: voodoo, Aids, Papa Doc, Baby Doc, boat people and recently, an American military invasion called Operation Restore Democracy he'd seen on TV." The success fee is $10m, and even allowing for the fact that the missing child's father is a billionaire (the rich in Haiti are very rich), the size of the reward should have alerted Mingus to the hazards ahead.

Gritty and unremittingly dark, replete with supervillains, Mr Clarinet pays homage to pulp fiction and film noir - more James Ellroy than Graham Greene. But perhaps because of Stone's Haitian roots, Mingus's mishaps in Port-au-Prince have an immediacy and an authenticity that are absent from many thrillers. In one nightmarish scene Mingus carelessly wanders out of a bar and finds himself lost in a deserted district. A shoeless street kid appears and asks for money. Mingus refuses, and then notices dozens of other ragged children emerging out of the darkness. They start collecting sticks and rocks and Mingus seems to have no choice but to open fire to avoid being lapidated by a mob of 10-year-olds.

Mr Clarinet is a voodoo spirit, reputedly the disembodiment of a French boy soldier killed during the war of independence, who is considered a sort of Pied Piper involved in the disappearance of children. It seems nearly impossible to write about Haiti without mentioning voodoo (or more properly vodou, to distinguish it from the slightly different New Orleans voodoo). Stone stresses that vodou is a religion, with all the tedious rituals associated with any religion, and not black magic, but nevertheless Mingus at one point consults a voyant, a psychic who formerly worked for Papa Doc. The voyant assures Mingus that the missing boy is alive and well. When pressed by Mingus for some details of the boy's whereabouts, the voyant testily replies: "You have to find out yourself. That's why you're here." Mingus does indeed find out, unearthing a grisly clump of conspiracies. I can't see Disney optioning this novel for a film.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006. Reprinted from Guardian Unlimited of Saturday, January 21, 2006.