Here's the second novel from an author whose first, the 1992 China Mountain Zhang, was widely acclaimed in sf circles. In contrast to the earlier book's world-spanning jaunts, this one offers a tight, tight focus on a claustrophobic setting—Caribe, a deep-sea habitat far beneath the Caribbean, where the sun doesn't reach and all the lighting is artificial. So is a great deal of habitat life, which is full of sharp details like the need to give yourself an artificial fever with "pyroxin" to maintain body warmth when scuba-fishing in the chill waters outside. McHugh's lead characters are both distrusted misfits who are at risk in this high-tech segment of the Third World: a male French-Vietnamese mercenary and the female Chinese-American banker who takes him on as a needed bodyguard. Tension steadily increases through financial shenanigans, terrorist intervention, scapegoat-hunting local police, sudden gunfire, and explosive sabotage. Ultimately, this seabed pressure-vessel called Caribe is a huge sealed trap for outsiders, who end up on the run, stripped of their exit visas, all the options closing down except the remote hope of making a break for it. The story squeezes harder and harder until the satisfyingly understated finale. Not a flashy novel, but a good one. —David Langford