LITERARY FICTION by ANTHONY CUMMINS

(Bloomsbury £16.99, 208 pp) PARK has a knack for distilling heavy themes into pint-sized fiction, with a particular taste for tales of male guilt in times of political tumult (as in The Truth Commissioner, his best-known work, about the peace process in his native Northern Ireland).

His latest novel, another compact marvel, is a typically intimate study of complicity and self-reckoning. It’s told by Michael, a retired U.S. intelligence operative who once did some dirty work for a high-up gone rogue while serving in Saigon during the dog days of the Vietnam War.

His flood of memory is prompted by a mysterious tip-off, decades later, that his old boss is now caught up in the Mexican border crisis.

As Park ambitiously bridges American catastrophes past and present, the stakes sharpen to electrifying effect.

This is a meditative novel that, while investing heavily in a patient build-up of atmosphere, never forgets the need to put a foot on the gas.